US Total Government Spending Since 1900

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. In the aftermath of the Crash of 2008 spending jogged up to 40 percent of GDP before declining to about 35 percent GDP in the 2010s. In the COVID pandemic, spending increased sharply to 46 percent of GDP in 2020.

Federal, State, 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.