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Spending Analyses:
Numbers — Charts:
Spending Breakdown:
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What is the Total Government Spending?
In FY 2026, total US government spending, federal, state, and local, is “guesstimated” to be $13.33 trillion.
US Total Government Spending Breakdown
in $ million
Most government outlays are spent in just a few functional areas: pensions, health care, education, defense, and welfare.
Total Government Spending | |||
| Pensions | $77 million |  | |
| Health Care | + $486 million | | |
| Education | + $2,267 million | | |
| Defense | + $1,374 million | | |
| Welfare | + $288 million | | |
| Protection | + $629 million | | |
| Transportation | + $2,045 million | | |
| General Government | + $555 million | | |
| Other Spending | + $2,384 million | | |
| Interest | + $1,327 million | | |
| Total Spending | $11,678 million | | |
| Federal Deficit | + $-477 million | | |
| Other Borrowing | + $-196 million | | |
| Agency GSE Debt | + $0 million | | |
| Grants | + $0 million | | |
| Inflation | + $1 million | | |
| For detailed spending click here | Switch to revenue | ||
Spending Definitions
Pensions: Pensions, disability.
Health Care: Health care.
Education: K-12, college, training.
Defense: Military, foreign policy, veterans, foreign aid.
Welfare: Cash welfare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, workers compensation, housing, excluding health care.
Protection: Police, fire, law courts, prisons.
Transportation: Road, rail, airports.
General Government: Legislative, executive, finance.
Other Spending: Research, economic development, agriculture, energy, environment.
Interest: Interest on government debt.
Total Spending: Federal: total outlays including grants to state and local. State and local: direct spending on programs.
Spending Key:
Total spending: interpolated between actual reported values, interpolated between actual reported values
Tab-delimited Table
<table> Table
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See FEDERAL BUDGET breakdown and estimated vs. actual.
MILITARY SPENDING details, budget and history.
ENTITLEMENT SPENDING history.
See BAR CHARTS of spending, debt.
Check STATE spending: CA NY TX FL and compare.
See SPENDING ANALYSIS briefing.
See SPENDING HISTORY briefing.
Take a COURSE at Spending 101.
Make your own CUSTOM CHART.
Spending Data Sources
Spending data is from official government sources.
- Federal spending data since 1962 comes from the president’s budget.
- All other spending data comes from the US Census Bureau.
Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.
Detailed table of spending data sources here.
Medicare breakdown here; Medicaid breakdown here.
Federal spending data begins in 1792.
State and local spending data begins in 1820.
State and local spending data for individual states begins in 1957.
Sources
Gross Federal Debt
| Debt Now: | $39,986,657,878,071.92 | Debt 2/2020: | $23,409,959,150,243.63 |
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Data Sources for 1929:
GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the US, Colonial Times to 1970
State and Local: Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the US, Colonial Times to 1970
> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.
Blog
State and Local Finances for 2024
On August 7, 2026 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2024 using the new Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances summaries for FY 2024 released in July 2026. (See also Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances). The release includes state and local spending for the United States as a whole and the 50 individual states and the District of Columbia.
State and local spending and revenue for FY2024 are now actual historical spending as reported by the Census Bureau.
We have updated the "guesstimated" state and local finances for FY2025-31 as indicated in our "guesstimate" blog entries.
We have also updated data for individual local government units with data for 2024.
Beginning in 2022 the Census Bureau has changed the value for Line 56 Direct Expenditure and Line 7 General Revenue from own sources, as follows:
We have decided to end our publication of non-insurance trust cash and security holdings.
However, to keep the time series at usgovernmentspending.com consistent, we have decided to add insurance-trust values back into Line 56 and Line 7 values.
On July 2, 2026 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2024 using the new Census Bureau S ...
On June 16, 2026, the Center for Medicare Services released its annual ...
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