In 2020, the government spent $6.55 trillion.
Where does all the money go? The government spends money on programs that ensure the well-being of the people of the United States. Why does the federal government do this? The Constitution provides an answer! The Constitution’s preamble states that the purpose of our government is “…to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
How much is $6.55 trillion in federal spending? If you divide it by the U.S. population estimate in 2020, 330.3 million (U.S. Census Bureau), it would equate to a little more than $19,800 in federal spending for every individual.
Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the size of the nation's economy by the total value of final goods and services that are produced in a year. Gross domestic product is used to compare the economies of different countries, measure growth in the economy, and determine the right monetary policies to address inflation and unemployment.
In this visualization, one dot represents $1 billion dollars.
Data Sources and Methodology
The visualization was created using the Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) as the data source for federal government spending of the United States. Gross domestic product (GDP) figures come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). GDP data is current as of October 2020, and is an average of all the fiscal year to date GDP estimates calculated by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. For more information about how GDP is calculated, visit the Bureau of Economic Analysis' National Income and Product Account Handbook. The spending-to-gross domestic product ratio is included to provide you with context for the trillions of dollars that go out from the federal government annually. Throughout this page, we use the gross domestic product for the Fiscal Year, not the Calendar Year, in order to facilitate an appropriate comparison.
USAspending.gov contains spending data from the federal government’s response to COVID-19 and is available to view and download on USAspending.