Which States Spend the Most?

I came across a great graphic the other day regarding the amount of stimulus spending each state is using (“Government Spending State-By-State“) on BillShrink’s blog. The graphic shows the amount of government spending, both in dollars and in percent of GSP (Gross State Product). The highest percent went to Mississippi with a whopping 33.2%. The highest in dollars was easily California, outpacing the state in second by nearly double with $438.1 BILLION dollars in government spending. The lowest was North Dakota with $5.6 Billion and Delaware with 15.1%.

Probably the most interesting part of the graphic from my perspective was the one depicting who got the most and who got the least from the stimulus bill, per capita. Utah and Alaska topped the list for Most, while Florida and West Virginia – two states who have been hit incredibly hard by the economic crisis – received the least. It should be noted, however, that the difference between the highest and the lowest was only around $30 Billion. A large amount of money for sure, but not nearly the magnitude of variance you might expect when discussing a issue such as this one. It should also be noted that Utah and Alaska have around eight times the combined land area of Florida and West Virginia combined (mostly in Alaska), but Florida and West Virginia have nearly six times as many people (mostly in Florida).

At any rate, I’m a big fan of graphical representations of data so I really enjoy stuff like that. Sometimes seeing data represented visually as opposed to just line items in an Excel spreadsheet can really shed some light onto data in a unique way.

Michael
Twitter: @michael_dink