States Most Dependent on the Federal Government - 2022 Edition
Billions of dollars are at stake each year for individual states when lawmakers in Washington D.C. negotiate the following year’s federal budget. For 2023, President Biden is calling for a 7% increase in federal spending as part of his $5.8 trillion budget proposal. While this money will ultimately play a major role in how states fund themselves, some states are more reliant on federal dollars than others. For example, Wyoming gets over 56% of its revenue from federal sources, but only 27% of Hawaii’s revenue comes from the federal faucet. With this in mind, SmartAsset took a closer look at individual states to determine which ones are most dependent on the federal government.
To do this, we analyzed and compared data across the following metrics: federal share of state government revenue, ratio of federal funding to income taxes paid, percentage of workers employed by the federal government and ratio of median earnings for federal workers to median earnings for private workers. For details on our data sources and how we put all the information together to create our final rankings, read the Data and Methodology section below.
Red states dominate the top 10. Eight of the 10 states most dependent on the federal government traditionally vote Republican. New Mexico (No. 2) is the only state in the top 10 to vote for the Democratic candidate in any of the last six presidential elections. Maine (No. 8), which splits its delegates, has voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the recent elections.
On average, federal funding makes up about 39% of state revenues. However, this figure varies by a margin of more than 29 percentage points. The federal share of state government revenue is highest in Wyoming, at 56.43%, and lowest in Hawaii, at 27.13%.
Connecticut ranks as the state least reliant on the federal government. . .
States Most Dependent on the Federal Government
States are ranked according to four metrics. Hover over each state to see overall rank, federal share of state revenue and ratio of federal funding to income taxes paid.
1. West Virginia
No state is more dependent on the federal government than West Virginia, which gets 45.16% of its revenue from federal sources (the 10th-most). West Virginia receives 2.36-times more revenue from the federal government than its residents pay in income taxes, the third-highest ratio across our study. Meanwhile, 4.08% of workers in the state are employed by the federal government (the seventh-most), earning nearly double (1.99) what private, for-profit workers earn on average.
2. New Mexico
New Mexico has the fifth-largest percentage of workers employed by the federal government (6.06%). The ratio of federal funding to income taxes paid is 1.87, the fourth-highest for this metric. Meanwhile, the federal government supplies the state with 41.80% of its revenue.
3. Mississippi
For every $1 paid in income tax in Mississippi, the state takes in $2.53 in federal funding. That’s the second-largest ratio of federal funding to income taxes paid in our study. Meanwhile, 47.31% of state revenues come from federal funding, which is the seventh-highest percentage of all 50 states. Additionally, Mississippi has the 11th-largest percentage of workers employed by the federal government (3.23%).'>>>
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/states-most-dependent-on-the-federal-government-2022?
Lots here for us all to chew on, I'm sure.
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