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What is the Total US Government Spending?

In FY 2021, total US government spending, federal, state, and local, was “guesstimated” to be $10.04 trillion, with federal $6.82 trillion; state $2.23 trillion; local $2.22 trillion.

National Spending Analysis  

 

This page shows the current trends in US national spending. Also see charts on US spending history. See also: Social Security Spending and Medicare Spending
 

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Recent US Total Government Spending

Recent Total Government Spending

Chart S.01t: Recent Total Government Spending

Recent Total Spending as Pct GDP<br><br> 

Chart S.02t: Recent Total Spending as Pct GDP

 

Total US Government Spending, federal, state and local, was increasing briskly, year on year, in the mid 2000s from $4.4 trillion in 2005 to $6 trillion in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009. For several years after the end of the recession total government spending leveled out at $6 trillion. But in 2015 spending started to increase again. Estimated spending for 2021 was $10.04 trillion.

Viewed from a GDP perspective, total government spending was steady at about 33 percent GDP in the mid 2000s and then jumped, in the Great Recession, to 41 percent GDP. But in the subsequent economic recovery total government spending has steadily declined as a percent of GDP down to about 354 percent GDP in 2015. Estimated spending for 2021 was 43.7 percent GDP.

Note: The blue bars of “negative” spending are “intergovernmental transfers.” They are monies counted in the federal budget but actually transferred to state and local governments and counted again for spending on programs like Medicaid.

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US Total Government Spending Since 1900

Total Spending as Percent GDP

Chart S.03t: Total Spending as Percent GDP

Government spending at the start of the 20th century was less than 7 percent of GDP. It vaulted to almost 30 percent of GDP by the end of World War I, and then settled down to 10 percent of GDP in the 1920s. In the 1930s spending doubled to 20 percent of GDP. Defense spending in World War II drove overall government spending over 50 percent of GDP before declining to 22 percent of GDP in the late 1940s. The 1950s began a steady spending increase to about 36 percent of GDP by 1982. In the 1990s and 2000s government spending stayed about constant at 33-35 percent of GDP, but in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008 spending jogged up to 40 percent of GDP before declining to about 35 percent GDP.

Federal, State, Local Spending in 20th Century

Federal State and Local Spending<br>in 20th Century

Chart S.04t: Federal State and Local Spending
in 20th Century


At the start of the 20th century, government spending was principally local government spending. Out of a total of 7 percent of GDP, a full 4 percent was spent at the local level. Federal spending spiked in World War I, but in the 1920s, local government still represented about half of all government spending. In the 1930s this changed, and federal spending surged to about half of all government spending. After the spike of World War II the federal share increased again and state government spending also began to increase as a percent of GDP, so that by the mid 2010s federal spending checked in at over 20 percent of GDP, state spending amounted to about 9 percent of GDP and local spending was declining towards 9.5 percent of GDP.

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MILITARY SPENDING details, budget and history.

ENTITLEMENT SPENDING history.

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Check STATE spending: CA NY TX FL and compare.

See SPENDING ANALYSIS briefing.

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Take a COURSE at Spending 101.

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Spending Data Sources

Spending data is from official government sources.

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.

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Debt Now:  $30,736,589,309,063.51
Debt 2/2020:$23,409,959,150,243.63

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Data Sources for 2017_2027:

Sources for 2017:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

Sources for 2027:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

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Medicare Part C Update from 2022 Medicare Trustees Report

Usgovernmentspending.com has updated its estimate of Medicare Part C, the Medicare Advantage program using data in the Medicare Trustees Report of 2022 that was released June 4, 2022. You can see the results here.

The Budget of the United States Government reports Medicare outlays as a single line item, subfunction 571 in Historical Table 3.2, but Usgovernmentspending.com shows a breakdown of the Medicare program into its constituent parts, as follows:
  1. Part A: Hospital Insurance
  2. Part B: Supplementary Medical Insurance
  3. Part C: Medicare Advantage
  4. Part D: SMI Drug Plan
These data are constructed from data in the Public Budget Database, which provide details on Part A, Part B, and Part D, with Part C embedded in the Part A and Part B outlays. Part C is constructed from data in Table IV.C2 in the Medicare Trustees Report 2022 which reports the payments made to private Medicare health plans and the projected payments in future years.

You can inspect the extracted data from Medicare Trustees Reports Table IV.C2 here. And see the blog entry that introduced the Medicare Part C breakout to usgovernmentspending.com here.

Here is a breakdown of Medicare budgeted outlays on usgovernmentspending.com for FY 2022 before and after today's update.

Budgeted Outlays in
percent GDP		Part APart BPart CPart DTotal
Medicare
FY2022 before update0.690.681.390.373.14% GDP
FY2022 after update0.690.661.420.373.14% GDP


The update indicates a  small increase in budgeted Medicare Part C over the previous estimate in the Medicare Trustees Report in 2021.

State and Local Finances for 2020
On July 6, 2022 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2020 using the new Census Bureau  ...

Medicare/Social Security 2022 Trustee Reports Released
On June 2, 2022, the Center for Medicare Services released its annual  ...

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