State and Local Estimates for 1820-1889

On April 17, 2016 we added estimates of state and local spending for 1820-1889. These data were obtained from Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Volume 2: The Rise of Classes and Nation-States 1760-1914. On Page 363 Mann presents a table of spending for 1820 thru 1890, taken from an estimate of state and local revenue, for each decade year.

Mann's data only includes a number for combined state and local spending (or revenue), but we have estimated the state and local breakdown based on the spending and revenue numbers for 1890 obtained from the Census Bureau. Expenditures and revenues are in millions of nominal dollars. We assume that the ratio of state to local spending, and state to local revenue, remains the same from 1820 to 1890.

	-- From Mann, p363 --
Year	Central Expenditure	Total Expenditure	State and Local Expenditure	State Spend Estimate	Local Spend Estimate	State Rev. Estimate	Local Rev. Estimate
1890	384.3	944.3	560	72	488	106	454
1880	301	621.1	320.1	41.2	278.9	60.6	259.5
1870	328.5	611.7	283.2	36.4	246.8	53.6	229.6
1860	71.7	171.7	100	12.9	87.1	18.9	81.1
1850	44.8	89.2	44.4	5.7	38.7	8.4	36
1840	28.9	67.6	38.7	5	33.7	7.3	31.4
1830	17	33.1	16.1	2.1	14	3	13.1
1820	19.3	27.7	8.4	1.1	7.3	1.6	6.8

These numbers should be regarded as tentative and merely indicative of the size of state and local finances in the mid 19th century. Nobody can imagine the exact spending and revenue, since governments in the mid-19th century acted much more independently than they do today, and made up their rules, about what to count as spending and what to count as revenue, as they went along.