|
Spending Analyses:
Numbers — Charts:
Federal Budget:
| Tweet | | Contact | Follow @chrischantrill |
US Federal Budget Analyst
A comparison of budget authority for FY 2024 estimated in various federal budgets against the final budget authority in FY 2024.
Estimated vs. Actual Federal Budget Authority
for Fiscal Year 2024 from Federal Budgets
| Units: By default, values are displayed in billions of nominal dollars. By using a dropdown control in the table heading you can select millions of dollars, percent of GDP, percent of federal total, percent of overall total, dollars per capita of population, and thousand dollars per capita of population. Fiscal Year: The default year displayed is the current US government fiscal year. But you can select any year you want using the dropdown control in the table heading. At the top and bottom of the dropdown only years ending in “0” are shown. Select a year to get close, then select the year you want. You can increase or decrease the year using the “yr” text links in the table heading. | ||
| US Federal Government Budget Authority Budgeted vs. Actual | ||
| -5yr -1yr Fiscal Year 2024 in $ billion +1yr +5yr | ||
| Estimates for FY 2024 Federal Budget Authority in US Budgets | |||||||||||
| Change View: people old default radical census programs altprog COFOG | Estimate in FA20 Budget | Estimate in FA21 Budget | Estimate in FA22 Budget | Estimate in FA23 Budget | Estimate in FA24 Budget | Estimate in FA25 Budget | Actual 2024 | ||||
| [+] | Pensions | 1,488.5 | 1,456.7 | 1,427.5 | 1,479.5 | 1,553.9 | 1,552.3 | 1,538.6 | 
| ||
| [+] | Health Care | 1,516.2 | 1,453.8 | 1,697.2 | 1,666.3 | 1,760.7 | 1,745.7 | 1,788.0 |
| ||
| [+] | Education | 106.0 | 109.2 | 275.6 | 206.1 | 315.5 | 252.1 | 268.4 |
| ||
| [+] Charts: Click on a to display a bar of data in a row or column of this table.Click on  to display a time-series chart of data in a row.[+] Drill-down: Click on the [+] to drill down to more detailed numbers. For federal spending line items (but not revenue) you can drill down three levels to view about 4,000 items of spending at the “agency code” level. | Defense | 1,108.7 | 1,136.6 | 1,194.5 | 1,253.0 | 1,327.9 | 1,411.2 | 1,456.3 |
| ||
| [+] | Welfare | 371.2 | 367.6 | 613.4 | 468.3 | 789.0 | 515.0 | 478.6 |
| ||
| [+] | Protection | 54.1 | 49.8 | 49.2 | 52.0 | 56.2 | 52.6 | 53.7 |
| ||
| [+] | Transportation | 96.2 | 110.0 | 211.8 | 164.4 | 165.6 | 164.5 | 163.5 |
| ||
| [+] | General Government | 53.9 | 55.0 | 64.8 | 69.8 | 84.3 | 40.5 | 43.1 |
| ||
| [+] | Other Spending | -13.6 | 24.3 | 320.3 | 252.0 | 206.6 | 326.4 | 293.8 |
| ||
| [+] | Interest | 701.7 | 457.8 | 367.8 | 476.5 | 788.8 | 888.6 | 879.9 |
| ||
| [+] | Balance | 0.0 | 0.0 | 6.9 | -99.4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 29.5 |
| ||
| [+] | Total Spending | 5,482.9 | 5,220.8 | 6,229.1 | 5,988.3 | 7,048.5 | 6,948.9 | 6,993.4 |
| ||
| [+] | Gross Public Debt | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| ||
| [+] | Other Borrowing | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| ||
| [+] | Agency GSE Debt | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| ||
| [+] | Grants | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | | ||
| Spending: Pie Chart: Select a pie chart you wish to display. You can create a pie chart for federal, state and local, and overall spending/revenue. Data Sources for 2024: | |||||||||||
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.
Notes
Starting with the 1986 budget, the Office of Management and Budget provides six years of estimated budget authority for each function and subfunction extending from the fiscal year in which the federal budget is published to five years into the future. For instance, the 1986 budget historical tables included estimates for FY85, FY86, FY87, FY88, FY89, and FY90. Starting with FY90, OMB will have made six estimates of budget authority for each year before the actual budget authority for a fiscal year is reported.
The table shows overall budgeted federal budget authority for major functions for the specified fiscal year, as estimated in the historical tables in several presidential budgets. You can compare these estimates with the actual final budget authority for the fiscal year as reported in the budget historical tables after the specified fiscal year is over.
You can change the year or drill down to view more detailed budget authority information.
Data Sources: Federal Budget Authority from Historical Table 5.1 in the Budget of the United States Government.
For a discussion of the sources of the government spending data used here read How We Got the Data for usgovernmentspending.com.
Budget Updates: The president’s budget is typically published each year in February.
Download Estimated vs. Actual Budget Authority Data for 2024
You can download budget data as a CSV file or directly as a tab-delimited table.
Download Data as CSV File
Click button to download CSV file of data in table
Tab-delimited Table
Here is the budget table with columns tab-delimited. You can cut and paste directly into a spreadsheet:
You can copy all the text in the textbox by clicking your cursor in the box. Then press Ctrl-A and Ctrl-C and paste the text into your spreadsheet.
Suggested Video: What is the Deficit?
Top Spending Requests:
Find DEFICIT stats and history.
Get WELFARE stats and history.
US BUDGET overview and pie chart.
Find NATIONAL DEBT today.
DOWNLOAD spending data or debt data.
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.
Gross Federal Debt
| Debt Now: | $37,852,655,815,448.95 | Debt 2/2020: | $23,409,959,150,243.63 |
Site Search
Spending 101
Take a course in government spending:
Spending |
Federal Debt |
Revenue
Defense |
Welfare |
Healthcare |
Education
Debt History |
Entitlements |
Deficits
State Spending |
State Taxes |
State Debt
It’s free!
Win Cash for Bugs
File a valid bug report and get a $5 Amazon Gift Certificate.
Get the Books
 Price: $0.99 Or download for free. |
 From usgovernment spending.com Price: $1.99 |
 Life after liberalism Price: $0.99 Or download for free. |
Data Sources for 2024:
GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 5.1 and 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.
Blog
State and Local Finances for 2023
On September 11, 2025 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2023 using the new Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances summaries for FY 2023 released on July 31, 2025. (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 FY2023 are now actual historical spending as reported by the Census Bureau. In addition, the Census Bureau published updated tables for 2021 and 2022.
We have updated the "guesstimated" state and local finances for FY2024-30 as indicated in our "guesstimate" blog entries.
We have also updated data for individual local government units with data for 2023.
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.
In March 2025 the US Census Bureau released data on state finances for FY 2023 here and ...
On June 24, 2025, usgovernmentspending.com updated its data for agency debt from the Federal Reserve Board database. Data is now available for the period 1945-2024. You can see our Agency Debt page ...
> blog
Budget News
President’s FY 2025 Budget Release Scheduled for March 11
Although the FY 2024 appropriations process is not yet resolved
Biden to Release Budget March 9
will press McCarthy On Default Risk - Bloomberg
Biden to Release 2023 Budget Request on March 28
how the administration expects to spend money for priorities including aid to Ukraine and the continuing effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic, as well as legislative proposals such as increased funding for community policing programs, cancer research, and mental health education.
> archive
Spend Links
us numbers • us budget • custom chart • deficit/gdp • spend/gdp • debt/gdp • us gdp • us real gdp • state gdp • breakdown • federal • state • local • 2024 • 2025 • 2026 • california • texas
usgovernmentspending.com
presented by Christopher Chantrill