If you ever feel like you may be in a one-sided relationship with the federal government come tax season, there’s a chance you’re right. It’s not you, it’s them.
The focus lately on federal spending cuts has highlighted the importance that massive amounts of federal money play in all 50 states. But there’s another perspective to this issue: For some states, the amount they receive back in federal funding is less than what they pay in taxes.
The map below pulls data from a Rockefeller Institute of Government first released last year. (The analysis focuses mostly on New York, where the institute is based, but it contains data on all 50 states.)
The institute looked at all the tax revenue coming from a state — income, corporate, Social Security, Medicare, etc. And it also looked at all the funding coming back — federal grants, salaries to federal employees, Social Security and Medicare benefits, and on and on. The difference — either positive or negative — is known as the balance of payments.
That figure can also be expressed as return on the dollar: For every buck in taxes a state sent to the federal government, how much in funding came back?
Ups and downs
This particular map shows data from 2022, excluding one-time funding related to COVID pandemic relief. Adding those relief dollars changes this slightly, but Colorado was still a net contributor in 2022.
That’s not always the case, though. While Colorado was also a net contributor from 2015 through 2017, the state was a net recipient from 2018 through 2021, even when excluding COVID relief dollars in 2020 and 2021. (All states were net recipients in 2020 and 2021 when including COVID money.)
Virginia, Maryland the biggest winners
In terms of sheer dollars, Virginia and Maryland — home to an awful lot of federal agencies and employees — come out the furthest ahead in this analysis, with $100 billion and $75 billion surpluses in 2022 (excluding COVID dollars), respectively.
But, slicing the numbers another way, New Mexico is tops for return on the dollar and the balance of payments per capita.
California had the lowest balance of payments in 2022: negative-$126 billion. New Jersey is worst for return on the dollar, and Massachusetts has the lowest balance per capita.
You can play around with 2022 numbers in the table below. If you want to explore data for previous years, .