Who pays
for my state?

Federal spending allocated to a state’s people, governments and businesses: direct payments such as Social Security and Medicare, grants such as Medicaid, federal contracts, federal wages and other identified spending. This is broader than aid to the state government. Contracts and wages pay for work; retirement and health programs serve beneficiaries. The totals are not a measure of welfare dependence or personal lifetime contributions.

The New York State Office of the State Comptroller’s September 2026 report, New York’s Balance of Payments in the Federal Budget: Federal Fiscal Year 2024, and its supporting workbook cover all 50 states and D.C. FY 2024 runs October 1, 2023 through September 30, 2024. The report combines federal administrative sources with estimates and geographic adjustments. We use its single consistent allocation methodology rather than mixing raw IRS collections with a different spending dataset.

Workbook tabs used: Taxes Paid, Taxes Paid by Category, Expenditures, Direct Payments, Major Direct Payment Programs, Grants, Procurement, Wages and Salaries, Other Identified Federal Expenditures, and Population. Source totals in millions are converted to dollars. Population is the report’s July 1, 2024 estimate. Category totals, national totals, balances and ratios are checked against the workbook. Display rounding can cause small apparent differences.

Spending per tax dollar = allocated federal spending ÷ attributed federal taxes. Net balance = spending − taxes. Net per resident = net balance ÷ population. The national ratio uses national totals, not an average of state ratios. Rankings use unrounded values. “Other direct payments” is the remainder after subtracting Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits and federal employee benefits from total direct payments. These rows do not overlap; program subcategories are not added again.

Comparing a state’s ratio with the national ratio is descriptive. It is not a calculation of which state pays another state’s bills, nor a borrowing-adjusted balance.

The source excludes federal revenue and spending that cannot be meaningfully assigned to these states. Important exclusions include net interest on federal debt, international affairs and overseas procurement, miscellaneous receipts, customs duties and fees, and Puerto Rico and other outlying areas. See the report’s appendices for the full scope. The roughly $1.0 trillion gap between allocated spending and taxes is not the full federal deficit.

Federal corporate taxes are geographically attributed estimates, not a claim about who ultimately bears their economic cost. Spending in a state can benefit people elsewhere, as with military installations and research. State demographics, incomes and federal facilities affect the results. One year is a snapshot, not a permanent classification. Other studies can produce different results by using different scopes and allocation methods.

The source’s “Other identified spending” consists of EIDL loans. Loan amounts and student-loan costs are included as reported; they should not be interpreted as ordinary grants or as equivalent measures of subsidy.

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