The federal government spends money for national defense, to build infrastructure, to provide income support to the elderly, to cover medical spending for more than 100 million Americans, and to provide a wide variety of other services for individuals, communities, and the general population. Some of this spending reaches beneficiaries directly, while other spending does so through indirect channels. The distribution of this spending across U.S. populations is key to understanding the effect that federal spending has on inequality and other economic outcomes of interest.
As part of the RAND von Furstenberg Family Budget Model Initiative, the authors developed tools to help map the majority of U.S. federal spending to the people, communities, and businesses that receive those funds and the populations that benefit from the programs supported by that spending. Mapping spending on federal programs to those who receive the funds and benefit from them can greatly improve precision when estimating the effects of federal spending. And by more closely examining where federal spending actually goes, economic analysts can more precisely measure the effects of policies. This document details the methodologies for creating an open-source dataset using public sources to present a comprehensive look at the U.S. population. Such a dataset is a valuable resource for policymakers, researchers, and modelers.
The working paper version of this document was funded by the Builder’s Initiative. Subsequent funding came from the RAND von Furstenberg Family Budget Model Initiative. This work was conducted as part of the RAND von Furstenberg Family Budget Model Initiative within RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.
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Version Note
This publication supersedes a previous version published in 2025 (WR-A3271-1).
