Federal Deficit, Receipts, Outlays Actuals for FY21

On October 22, 2021, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xlsx) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2021 ending September 30, 2021, was $2,772 billion. Here are the numbers, including total receipts, total outlays, and deficit compared with the numbers projected in the FY 2022 federal budget published in February 2021:

Federal Finances FY 2021 Outcomes
	Budget billions	Outcome billions
Receipts	$3,580	$4,046
Outlays	$7,250	$6,818
Deficit	$3,669	$2,772

usgovernmentspending.com now shows the new numbers for total FY 2021 total outlays and receipts on its Estimate vs. Actual page.

The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2020 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2021.

This MTS report on FY 2021 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2021 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY23 budget in February 2022. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2021 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY21 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement.

On top of that, the unbudgeted spending to fight the COVID-19 virus is tucked into various places where you'd least expect it. We have tried to unearth these monies in the MTS and translate them into subfunction amounts.

Final detailed FY 2021 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2023 federal budget is published in February 2022 with the actual outlays for FY 2021 in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction.