Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Update: State and Local Spending

Up till now, usgovernmentspending.com and usgovernmentrevenue.com have shown state and local spending and revenue prior to 1992 as combined state-and-local numbers. The Census Bureau provides tables of state-and-local spending and revenue in its annual Statistical Abstract and in the retrospective Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.

But the Census Bureau also publishes in those publications tables of separate state spending and revenue and local spending and revenue. usgovernmentspending.com has now loaded the separate state and local spending from 1902 to 1991 into usgovernmentspending.com. usgovernmentrevenue.com has now loaded the separate state and local revenue from 1902 to 1991 into usgovernmentrevenue.com.

There are, however, gaps in the record. For about 15 years between 1971 and 1984 there are no detailed records of spending by function broken down into state and local separately. And between 1971 and 1991 there are no records of utility spending and revenue broken down into state and local separately. In addition, of course, the Census Bureau only reports for even-years between 1932 and 1952, and prior to 1932 only reports for 1902, 1913, 1922, and 1927. So there is quite a lot of "interpolation."

You can tell which numbers are "actual" and which are "interpolated" in the tables of annual spending/revenue under the NUMBERS tab. Actual numbers are shown in blue and bold. Interpolated numbers are blue, bold, and italic.