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What is the local spending on Education?

In FY 2025 local spending on education was “guesstimated” to be $1,119 billion.

Local Education Spending Analysis

This page shows the current trends in local education spending. There are also charts on education spending history. See here for a general history of education spending.

Recent Local Education Spending

Recent Local Education Spending

Chart S.81l: Recent Local Education Spending

In the 2010s local education spending started out at $600 billion. After 2014 local education spending steadily increased to $800 billion in 2020.

After a pause in the COVID crisis of 2020 local education spending has resumed its growth.

In 2025 local education spending was “guesstimated” at $1,119 billion.

Recent Local Education Spending<br>as Pct GDP

Chart S.82l: Recent Local Education Spending
as Pct GDP

Viewed from a GDP perspective, local education spending started declining in 2010 from 4.2 percent GDP to 3.6 percent GDP in 2014.

Since the COVID crisis of 2020 local education spending has declined to about 3.3 percent GDP.

In 2025 local education spending was “guesstimated” at 3.6 percent GDP.

See also Education Spending History.

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Local Education Spending by Level Since 1900

Local Education spending grew from one percent of GDP to nearly 4 percent GDP in the 20th century.

Education Spending since 1900 by Type

Chart S.83l: Education Spending since 1900 by Type

Over the 20th century local education spending shows a steady increase in spending from one percent of GDP to 3.5 to 4.0 percent GDP, with a big drop-off in World War II. Almost all local education spending is on pre-primary through secondary education.

Since 2010 local education spending has declined as a percent of GDP, down to 3.3 percent GDP by 2022.

Local spending on higher education began right after World War II, and reached 0.2 percent GDP in the 2010s.

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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:  $39,375,254,020,492.22
Debt 2/2020:$23,409,959,150,243.63

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Data Sources for 2021_2031:

Sources for 2021:

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 2031:

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.

Blog

State and Local Finances for 2024 -- First Look

On July 2, 2026 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2024 using the new Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances "first look"summaries for FY 2024 released in April 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. It does not include 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.

Beginning in 2021, the Census Bureau stopped splitting "Public welfare" into three parts:

  • Cash assistance payments
  • Vendor payments
  • Other public welfare
This is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com, because most of "Vendor payments" are for health care and are just pass-through grants from the federal government. So, for the time being, we are splitting "Public welfare" into  the proportions that obtained in 2021.

Medicare/Social Security 2026 Trustees Report Released
On June 16, 2026, the Center for Medicare Services released its annual ...

CBO Long Term Budget Outlook for 2026
On February 25, 2026 the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Long Term Budget Outlook for 2026, which projects ...

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