Where does federal government money go In the US?

This app shows you some of the details of US federal government spending since 2017. Click on the tabs to see different presentations of the data.

(Canva)

 

How has spending changed over time? Use this chart to find out. Use the selector at the bottom to select which agencies you want to display.

The data clearly shows the effect of COVID on agency spending.

This chart shows agency and sub-agency spending. Use the bar chart slider to select which agencies you want to display. Click twice on a bar to drill down to the next level of spending. Use the year slider to select the year. The About tab explains a bit more about the entity spending hierarchy.

Note that not all entities have spending in a given year. Some entities have a short lifetime and exist only for a year or two.

This app shows US spending by agency and their subsidiaries over time. I explain a little about US government organization below.

The "Agency spending over time" tab shows the spending over time by agency. Note that not all agencies spend money every year. Use the bar chart slider below the chart to select which agencies are shown on the line chart,

The "Entity drilldown" tab shows spending by agency and their subsidiaries. By double clicking on an agency, you can see the spending of its component entities, sub-entities, and so on. You can drill down to the "object class" level. You can go back levels using the buttons, for example, if you've drilled down to the "object class" level, you can go back to the "program activities" level using the appropriate button. You can also change the year using the year slider.

For spending purposes, the US federal government breaks down spending by levels. Here are the levels.

1. Agency. This is this is the top level. Agencies vary hugely in size, some sprend trillions while others spend millions.
2. Federal Account. The next level down below agency. Not all agencies have federal accounts.
3. Program Activities. The next level down below federal accounts. Not all federal accounts have program activities.
4. Object Classes. The next level down below program activities. Not all program activities have object classes.

The full data set includes recipients, but I haven't included that data here.

The data comes from the US government website https://www.usaspending.gov/. The data set starts in 2017 because that's where the USA Spending website starts the data set from. The likely reason is a change US federal government accounting practices. The US government year ends on September 30th, so the 2024 financial year runs from October 1st, 2023 to Seprember 30th, 2024.