Sources
Where every number comes from
Sources every receipt
Every number on this site comes from a government agency's own published data. Federal, California, and New York numbers are typed in from official reports. Every other state, city, town, and county is pulled automatically from public datasets once a month.
The data
| Level | What it covers | Year | Source | How it updates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nation | All federal spending, actual | Fiscal 2026 (Oct 2025 to Sep 2026) | U.S. Treasury, Final Monthly Treasury Statement | By hand, each October when the year closes |
| California | State General Fund (paid mostly by income and sales tax), enacted budget | Fiscal 2025-26 (Jul 2025 to Jun 2026) | CA Department of Finance, as tabled in the Senate Republican Fiscal Office's 2025-26 budget analysis | By hand, each summer |
| New York | State funds, actual spending (cash basis) | Fiscal 2026 (Apr 2025 to Mar 2026) | NY State Comptroller, 2026 Financial Condition Report, Appendix 1 | By hand, each summer |
| Every other state | State government spending, including aid sent to cities, counties, and schools | Fiscal 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Census of Governments: Finance | Automatically, monthly |
| California cities (all 482) | Governmental funds, actual spending | Fiscal 2023-24 | California State Controller's Office, By the Numbers: City Expenditures (open data API) | Automatically, monthly |
| Every other city, town, and village in the US | Actual spending by function | Fiscal 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Census of Governments: Finance, Individual Unit File | Automatically, monthly. The Census counts every government every five years |
| Counties | Shown when a zip code has no city government (unincorporated areas) | Fiscal 2022 | U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Census of Governments: Finance | Automatically, monthly |
| Zip code to city | Which city and county each zip code falls in. A zip counts as part of a city when the city covers at least 30% of its land | 2020 | U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 ZCTA relationship files | Automatically, monthly |
| Map | The location of every US zip code | zipcodes package, drawn with the d3-geo Albers USA projection | When the package updates |
How spending is sorted into categories
Each government labels its spending differently. We match their labels to our categories like this.
| Category | Federal | State | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roads & bridges | Federal Highway Administration | Transportation (NY includes transit aid) | Streets, highways, storm drains, street lights, parking |
| Public transit | Federal Transit Administration, rail | Not separated in state reports | Public transit systems |
| Parks & recreation | National Park Service | Grouped with environment | Parks, community centers, golf courses, marinas |
| Education | Department of Education | Schools, community colleges, universities | Schools, where the city runs them (like New York City) |
| Housing & homelessness | Department of Housing and Urban Development | Housing programs | Housing and redevelopment |
| Emergency services | FEMA | Fire, paramedics, disaster preparedness | |
| Police & public safety | Department of Justice, Homeland Security (minus FEMA) | Prisons, courts, state police | Police, jails, courts, animal control, inspections |
| Libraries & culture | Smithsonian, Library of Congress, NEA, NEH | Libraries and museums | |
| Public health | Medicare, Medicaid, NIH, CDC | Medicaid / Medi-Cal and public health (for states from the Census, all welfare payments, which are mostly Medicaid) | Health departments and hospitals |
| Water & environment | EPA, Interior, Army Corps of Engineers | Natural resources, CAL FIRE, environment | Sewers, garbage, natural resources |
| Government operations | Congress, federal courts, IRS operations | Legislature, governor, state operations | Council, city manager, finance, planning, buildings |
| Defense & veterans | Military and Veterans Affairs | ||
| Social Security | Social Security | ||
| Safety net | Food aid, tax credits, unemployment | Welfare, in-home care, developmental services | Welfare and job programs |
| Paying off debt | Interest on the national debt | Bond payments | Debt payments |
| Everything else | Science, agriculture, foreign aid, and the rest | Business regulation, revenue sharing | Anything without a clear category |
What's left out
- City-run utilities, airports, and seaports. Customer bills and fees pay for these, not taxes.
- Federal money passed through to states. It's counted once, at the federal level.
- School districts and special districts (like transit or water districts). They're separate governments with their own budgets.
- Counties, unless the zip code has no city government. Where there's a city, the site shows the city, even though the county also serves those residents.
Keeping it current
City numbers are rebuilt automatically on the first of every month by a script that runs on GitHub (scripts/build-city-data.mjs). It downloads both datasets, sorts each line into a category, and saves the results with the site. Federal and state numbers are updated by hand when each new year's report comes out.
Numbers are rounded, and a few categories are judgment calls. This site is for learning, not tax or financial advice.
Credits
- Moving images: stickers from GIPHY (full list in
assets/gifs/CREDITS.md) - Still fallback images: Microsoft Fluent Emoji (MIT license)
- Fonts: Architects Daughter, Playfair Display, Anton, IBM Plex Mono, and Archivo (SIL Open Font License)
- State lines: us-atlas, from U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files
- Map interaction inspired by Ben Fry's zipdecode