State Smart Notes and Sources

Last Update Dates

State Smart is updated as we get new numbers. Visit our change log for a complete list of changes and data updates.

Overview

State Smart looks at federal money flowing in and out of states over the years. There are three parts to the project, and the sources for each are detailed below.

  1. Demographic snapshot of each state
  2. Federal money going to the states:
    1. Federal contracts
    2. Federal aid to individuals
    3. Federal money going to state and local governments
    4. Federal compensation
  3. Federal money coming from the states (taxes)

Most of our datasets got back to 2002 so the initial State Smart publication could report 10 year trends. The exception is federal contracts data, where we went back to 2007 due to data limitations in USASpending.gov.

Total Federal Dollars to States

State Smart presents an estimate of total federal dollars that flow to each state during the course of a year. We get this estimate by summing the latest available data point for each of the following.

  • Total federal grants to state governments (state fiscal year 2012)
  • Total federal grants to local governments within the state (state fiscal year 2011)
  • Total federal aid to individuals in the state (calendar year 2013)
  • Total obligated funds for contracts performed in the state (federal fiscal year 2013)
  • Total federal compensation earned by federal employees working in the state (calendar year 2013)

Although these numbers represent different time periods, we've combined them to create a current best estimate for each state. Because the federal government does not currently publish complete, state-level spending information, we feel that the benefit of providing an approximate number outweighs the liberties we took to get it.

These estimates will change as new numbers become available.

Adjusting the Numbers

All dollar amounts in State Smart are presented as federal fiscal 2015 dollars. We do this for two reasons:

  1. To ensure that dollar amounts can be compared over time
  2. To show what things cost in today's dollars.

To adjust the numbers, we use GDP (Chained) Price Index as published in the annual President's Budget request. See historical table Gross Domestic Product and Deflators Used in the Historical Tables.

State of the State

To provide context for the federal money data, State Smart presents demographic information about each state.

Census American Community Survey

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an annual survey designed and executed by the Census Bureau. It's a treasure trove of information, and you can access the data on American FactFinder. State Smart pulls the following data from the latest available ACS 1-year estimates:

  • Race and ethnicity
  • Age
  • Educational Attainment
  • Health Insurance Coverage
  • Median Household Income
  • Poverty Rates

We access this information via the Census Bureau’s Application Programming Interface (API).

Bureau of Labor Statistics

We use two surveys from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to get information about each state’s unemployment and underemployment rates.

  • Local Area Unemployment Statistics Annual Average Statewide Data provides our unemployment numbers. We get this information via the Bureau’s Application Programming Interface (API). The series ids are LAUST[areacode]03 for state data and LNU04000000 for U.S. data.
  • Alternative Measures of Unemployment, Annual Averages. To represent underemployment, we use measure U-6: total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.

Federal Money Going to States

Federal Money to State and Local Governments

Every state government in the U.S. receives money from the federal government, as do many local governments. We get these numbers from two separate, though related, Census Bureau surveys. Each survey provides numbers by state fiscal year, which is July - June for all but four states (Alabama, Michigan, New York, and Texas). These numbers do not include federal dollars going to tribal governments, which are recognized as sovereign nations and, therefore, are not considered state or local governments by the Census Bureau.

For both state and local governments, we discuss revenue in terms of general revenue, which represents all revenues except those from state-owned liquor stores, utilities, and insurance trust funds. State Smart shows general revenue as four categories:

  • Federal grants: revenue coming in from the federal government.
  • State taxes: tax revenue from property, sales, and other taxes.
  • Charges (fee): revenue through charges from higher education institutes, hospitals, parking facilities, highways, parks and recreation, etc.
  • Other: interest earnings, property sales, and other miscellaneous revenue. For state governments, includes revenue coming in from local governments. For local governments, includes revenue coming in from state governments.

State Revenue

Our state revenue data comes from the the annual State Government Finances survey. This survey provides information about how states receive and spend money.

To crunch state revenues, we:

  1. Download the Flat Data File and corresponding file layout document from State Government Finances for 2002 forward.
  2. Using the file layout as a guide, parse the flat data file into its individual fields:
    • government id (state id codes)
    • item code
    • dollar amount (thousands of dollars)
    • survey year
    • data year
    • origin
  3. Calculate totals for each state:
    1. Sum the dollar amounts for all item codes that compose general revenue (found here). This gives us total state general revenue.
    2. Sum the dollar amounts for all item codes that compose revenue from the federal government (found here). This gives us total state revenue from federal sources.
    3. Calculate the percentage of revenues from federal government: total federal revenue / total state general revenue.

Local Revenue

Our local revenue data comes from the annual State and Local Government Finances survey. This survey augments the state finances information with information about how sub-state governments receive and spend money.

To crunch the local revenues, we:

  1. Download the State by Level of Government - Public User Format and its corresponding file layout document from State and Local Government Finances for each year from 2002 forward.
  2. Using the file layout as a guide, parse the flat data file into its individual fields:
    • state code
    • level (e.g., type of government)
    • item code
    • dollar amount
    • coefficient of variation
    • survey year
  3. Limit the file to local government information (e.g., rows with level = 3) and calculate totals for local governments within each state:
    1. Sum the dollar amounts for all item codes that compose general revenue (found here). This gives us total general revenue for local governments.
    2. Sum the dollar amounts for all item codes that compose revenue from the federal government (found here). This gives us total local government revenues from federal sources.
    3. Calculate the percentage of revenues from federal government: total federal revenue / total local government general revenue.

Details

In addition to calculating the federal revenue totals for state and local governments, we also capture the detailed federal revenue-related item codes provided by the Census Bureau. These are used in the State Smart narrative and provide additional insight into how federal money in state and local budgets is being used.

The list of federal reveue categories mentioned in State Smart and their corresponding Census item codes is below. This is a subset of the complete list of Federal Intergovernmental revenue item codes. For a full description of Census classifications related to federal, state, and local governments, consult the Government Finance and Employment Classification Manual

State Smart CategoryDescriptionCensus Item Code
Education Federal aid for education-related programs such as Head Start, school nutrition and milk programs, and grants and contractual amounts received by institutions of higher education for eduction or for research and development programs. B21
Health and Hospitals Includes federal aid for programs like the special supplemental food program (WIC) and alcohol, drug abuse, and mental health help. Also includes environmental health (e.g., EPA Superfund grants) and care of veterans in state hospitals, including facility construction. Does not include Medicaid (which is included in the Public Assistance category) or Medicare (which is included in State Smart's Aid to Individuals data). B42
Housing and Community Development Federal aid for construction or operation of public housing, rent subsidy programs (e.g., Section 8 funds), and community development. B50
Natural Resources Federal aid for forests and grasslands; soil, water, and energy conservation; flood prevention and drainage; fish and wildlife managemnet; and mine reclamation and safety. Includes aid for agricultural experiment stations and extension services; inspection of meat, poultry, and other agricultural products, and agricultural resarch. Does not include federal aid for parks and recreation and shared revenue from national forests, grazing lands, mineral leasing, etc. B43,B54,B59
Public Assistance Federal aid for programs such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, care in nursing homes not associated with hospitals, food stamp administration, child welfare services, Low Income Energy Assistance (LIHEAP), socal and community services block grants, refugee assistance, work incentives, and related administration. B79
Transportation Federal aid for construction, operation, and support of public airports (and other distributions from the Federal Airport and Airway Trust Fund); Federal aid distributed from the Federal Highway Trust or other funds for approved projects and other highway safety; Federal grants for urban mass transit. B01,B46,B94

Washington, DC

State Smart presents Washington, DC revenue numbers alongside state numbers. However, they actually come from the local portion of the State and Local Government Finances survey. That's because the Census Bureau treats Washington, DC as a local municipality for statistical purposes.

The Census Bureau applied some DC-related codes differently after a 2005 survey redesign, so we've only included DC data for 2005 forward.

Federal Aid to Individuals

Federal money that goes directly to individuals comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), going back to calendar year 2002. Specifically, we use table SA35, Personal Current Transfer Receipts from BEA's Annual State Personal Income and Employment series.

The BEA defines personal current transfer receipts as follows:

Income payments to persons for which no current services are performed and net insurance settlements. It is the sum of government social benefits and net current transfer receipts from business.

Personal current transfer receipts include money being paid by the U.S. federal government to individuals or on their behalf for programs like:

  • Social Security
  • Medicare
  • Food stamps (SNAP)
  • Uninsurance benefits

Table SA35 Personal Current Transfer Receipts mixes state and federal money into its Current transfer receipts of individuals from governments category. It also includes money from programs that we classify as federal grants to state governments (e.g., Medicaid and WIC) and capture elsewhere in State Smart. Thus, we take a subset of line items from the data:

  1. 2110 Social Security Benefits
  2. 2121 Railroad retirement and disability benefits
  3. 2210 Medicare benefits
  4. 2230 Military medical insurance benefits
  5. 2310 SSI*
  6. 2330 SNAP
  7. 2410 State unemployment insurance compensation**
  8. 2421 Unemployment compensation for Fed. Civilian employees (UCFE)
  9. 2422 Unemployment compensation for railroad employees
  10. 2423 Unemployment compensation for veterans (UCX)
  11. 2424 Other unemployment compensation
  12. 2510 Veterans pension and disability benefits
  13. 2520 Veterans Readjustment benefits
  14. 2530 Veterans life insurance benefits
  15. 2600 Education and training assistance*
  16. 2700 Other transfer receipts of individuals from governments*

Note: We exclude the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) refunds from our federal aid to individual number because it's included in State Smart's taxes numbers.
* Number includes a small percentage of money that originates from state governments rather than federal governments.
** Although unemployment insurance is funded largely through state-levied payroll taxes, unemployment benefits are considered federal budget outlays because state unemployment compensation revenue is deposited in the U.S. Treasury. Source: CRS Unemployment Insurance Programs and Benefits.

To crunch the numbers for State Smart, we:

  1. Download table SA35 Personal current transfer receipts from calendar 2002 to the most recent available year:
    1. Go to BEA's Interactive Regional GDP & Personal Income Data: http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_regional.cfm
    2. Click Begin using the data...
    3. Choose Annual State Personal Income and Employment
    4. Choose Personal current transfer receipts (SA35)
    5. You'll then be prompted, in a series of steps, for geographic area, specific fields, and year. For State Smart, we downloaded each year separately, choosing the following:
      • Area = All Areas
      • Unit of Measure = Levels
      • Statistic = All statistics in table
    6. Download the year's .csv file
  2. Remove all lines except those related to payments from the federal government (see above).
  3. For each year and state, sum the dollar amounts to get a total number that represents federal aid to individuals.

Alaska

The Other transfer receipts of individuals from governments category in the raw BEA data includes disbursements to Alaska residents from the Alaska Permanent Fund. Although this category represents a very small portion of overall personal current transfer receipts, we subtract the Alaska disbursements from the BEA number to ensure that state-by-state dollar amounts are as comparable as possible. We get the Alaska disbursement numbers from the state's website.

Federal Contracts

Federal Contract data comes from USASpending.gov, going back to federal fiscal year 2007. These numbers represent primary award data and don't reflect money passed along to sub-contractors.

To crunch the numbers for State Smart, we:

  1. Download the latest contracts archive files from USASpending.gov--one file per federal fiscal year.
    • Go to http://www.usaspending.gov/data
    • Click the Archives tab
    • Choose Agency = All Agencies, Spending Type = Contracts, and a fiscal year from the drop-downs on the Data Archives page
    • Choose the latest Full archive file from the list.
  2. Sum contract totals by state and agency for each federal fiscal year, using the following fields:
    • PlaceofPerformanceState: state where the primary portion of the contract work occurs
    • MajorAgencyCode: the major contracting federal organization
    • DollarsObligated: obligated dollars (i.e., funds designated for a specific purpose).*
  3. Calculate the top 5 contracting agencies for each state and federal fiscal year. We use that information in the narrative portion of State Smart.

* Obligated funds do not always result in actual expenditures and are not always spent in the same fiscal year that they are obligated. Initial obligated amounts may be adjusted at a later date. When we update contract data, we update all previous years to ensure that we capture these adjustments.

Federal Employees and Compensation

We track federal employee numbers and compensation in each state. The states represent the location of the job, not where the worker lives (especially important to keep in mind for states surrounding Washington, DC). This information comes from two Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) tables, both of the Annual State Personal Income and Employment series series:

  • Full-time and part-time wage and salary employment by industry (SA27N)
  • Compensation of employees by industry (SA06N)

Each of these tables groups numbers by industry, and we use the following classifications in State Smart:

  • State totals
  • Federal civilian totals (LineCode 2001)
  • Military totals (LineCode 2002)

Employees

We pull information from Full-time and part-time wage and salary employment by industry to get the total number of full and part-time federal employees per state. This number provides the denominator when we calculate average compensation per job. Compensation represents salaries and wages plus supplements like employer contributions for pensions, health insurance, and life insurance, and government social insurance.

To crunch federal employee for State Smart, we:

  1. Download table Full-time and part-time wage and salary employment by industry (SA27N) from calendar year 2002 to the most recent available year:
    1. Go to BEA's Interactive Regional GDP & Personal Income Data: http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_regional.cfm
    2. Click Begin using the data...
    3. Choose Annual State Personal Income and Employment
    4. Choose Full-time and part-time wage and salary employment by industry (SA27, SA27N)
    5. You'll then be prompted, in a series of steps, for industrial classification, geographic area, specific fields, and year. For State Smart, we downloaded each year separately, choosing the following:
      • Industrial Classification = NAICS (1998 forward)
      • Area = All Areas
      • Unit of Measure = Levels
      • Statistic = All statistics in table
    6. Download the year's .csv file
  2. Remove all lines except those related to total employment, total federal civilian employment, and total military employment (see above).
  3. For each year and state, sum the amounts to get total employment and total employment from federal jobs (federal civilian employment + military employment).

Compensation

We pull information from Compensation of Employees by Industry (SA06N) to get the total compensation of federal workers (full and part time) in each state. Compensation represents salaries and wages plus supplements like employer contributions for pensions, health insurance, and life insurance, and government social insurance. The BEA's website has a complete description of what's included in the federal government employee compensation number.

To crunch federal compensation numbers for State Smart, we:

  1. Download table Compensation of Employees by Industry from calendar year 2002 to the most recent available year:
    1. Go to BEA's Interactive Regional GDP & Personal Income Data: http://www.bea.gov/iTable/index_regional.cfm
    2. Click Begin using the data...
    3. Choose Annual State Personal Income and Employment
    4. Choose Compensation of employees by industry (SA06, SA06N)
    5. You'll then be prompted, in a series of steps, for industrial classification, geographic area, specific fields, and year. For State Smart, we downloaded each year separately, choosing the following:
      • Industrial Classification = NAICS (1998 forward)
      • Area = All Areas
      • Unit of Measure = Levels
      • Statistic = All statistics in table
    6. Download the year's .csv file
  2. Remove all lines except those related to total compensation, total federal civilian compensation, and total military compensation (see above).
  3. For each year and state, sum the amounts to get total compensation and total compensation from federal jobs (federal civilian compensation + military compensation).

Average Federal Compensation

We get each state's average federal compensation, we divide total federal compensation by total federal employees. We use the same formula to calculate average federal civilian compensation and average military compensation. Lastly, calculate average overall compensation in each state (total compensation / total employees) to use a metric for comparing federal jobs to other types of jobs.

Federal Pension/Retirement Contributions

The Federal Aid to Individuals portion of State Smart includes benefits paid out to federal or former federal employees. The compensation number includes contributions to these benefit programs (e.g., federal employee retirement, life insurance, and social insurance). We chose to include both numbers in State Smart because our goal is to the totality of federal money in each state during a given year.

Federal Dollars Not Included

The State Smart totals for federal dollars in the state exclude the following:

  • Federal grants to non-government entities, such as non-profits and universities. These represent a small portion of overall federal grant money (about three to eight percent of all grant money, depending on the year).
  • The value of non-cash federal assistance to state and local governments (e.g., gifts of food, property, etc.).
  • Proceeds from state and local government sales, liquidations, or earnings of Federal securities.
  • Costs resulting from federally-subsidized loans and loan guarantees.
  • Payouts from federal government insurance enterprises:
    • Federal Crop Insurance Company
    • Federal Housing Administration
    • National Flood Insurance
    • Overseas Private Investment Corporation
  • Expenditures for the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency are excluded.
  • U.S. expenses that can't be attributed to a state geography (e.g., interest on the debt and money spent in other countries) is not reflected here.

Federal Money From States

Federal Taxes

To calculate the federal taxes paid by residents and businesses in each state, we use two datasets from the annual IRS Data Book:

We calculate total taxes paid by subtracting the refund amount from gross collections. The result is net federal taxes by state, broken out as below:

Type of TaxDescriptionIRS Category
Individual Taxes paid by or on behalf of an individual. Includes income taxes, self-employment taxes, taxes paid on trust income, and both employee and employer contributions to Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes. Individual income tax witheld and FICA tax, Individual income tax payments and SECA tax, Unemployment insurance tax, Railroad retirement tax, Estate and trust income tax
Business Taxes paid on business income, including taxes on corporation income and on unrelated business income from tax-exempt organizations. Business income taxes
Estate Taxes paid on property transferred at death Estate tax
Gift Taxes paid on property transferred during life Gift tax
Excise Taxes on specific goods, such as gasoline Excise taxes

A few notes on the IRS data:

  • U.S. tax totals include money from U.S. armed services overseas, Puerto Rico, and money that hasn't been applied to taxpayer accounts (i.e., there is no known state).
  • Tax category totals may not always add up to the state's total because the IRS witholds and/or combines information to avoid disclosing information about specific taxpayers.
  • Refund numbers include the refundable portion of refundable tax credits, such as money paid out under the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program.
  • Refund numbers in 2008, 2009, and 2010 include economic stimulus payments and credits associated with the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008.
  • The IRS does not publish dollar amounts less than \$500. We process those lines of data as $0.
  • The 2007 excise tax reunds include a one-time telephone excise tax refund for excise taxes paid on long-distance telephone calls billed between February 28, 2003 and August 1, 2006.

State Fun Facts

Scattered throughout State Smart are non-budget and non-demographic facts about each state—just a few things we added for fun. The sources are as follows: