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What is the Total US Government Spending?

In FY 2018, total US government spending, federal, state, and local, was “guesstimated” to be $7.12 trillion, with federal $4.11 trillion; state $1.81 trillion; local $1.93 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

Chart S.01t: Recent Total Government Spending

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. per year.

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 34 percent GDP in 2015.

  Deficits and Debts

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US Total Government Spending Since 1900

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

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 2010s federal spending checked in at over 20 percent of GDP, state spending amounted to 8 to 9 percent of GDP and local spending exceeded 10 percent of GDP.

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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.

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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Data Sources for 2014_2023:

Sources for 2014:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances

Sources for 2023:

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.

Federal Deficit, Receipts, Outlays Actuals for FY18

On October 15, 2018, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xls) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2018 ending September 30, 2018, was $779 billion. Here are the numbers, including total receipts, total outlays, and deficit compared with the numbers projected in the FY 2019 federal budget published in February 2018:

Federal Finances
FY 2018 Outcomes
Budget
billions		Outcome
billions
Receipts $3,340$3,329
Outlays$4,130$4,108
Deficit$833$779

usgovernmentspending.com now shows the new numbers for total FY 2018 total outlays and receipts on its Estimate vs. Actual page.

The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2018 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2018.

This FTS report on FY 18 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2018 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY20 budget in February 2019. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2018 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY18 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Final detailed FY 2018 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2020 federal budget is published in February 2019 with the actual outlays for FY 2018 in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction.

Budget News

FY 2019 Budget Release Date
White House budget release on Feb. 12 at the earliest

White House says full fiscal 2018 budget to be released on May 23
including Historical Tables, etc.

Trump FY18 Budget News
Discretionary spending on March 16.

> archive

Blog

State FY18 Taxes Update
On September 20, 2018 usgovernmentspending.com updated FY2018 state revenue with quarterly tax data...

State and Local Finances for FY 2016
On September 16, 2018 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2016 using the new...

CBO Long Term Budget Outlook for 2018
On June 26, 2018 the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Long Term Budget Outlook for...

> blog

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