Documentation
"Federal Funds" Data
The principal data source we used to construct these files is
the Consolidated Federal Funds Reports (CFFR) data
from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, Governments
Division. We usually refer to these data as the "Federal Funds"
data. Census collects these fiscal year data annually from each
Federal Department or Agency. We aggregated the data to the county
and State level.
Caution should be used when interpreting the data. Not all of
these programs had reliable data at the county level. Each program
has individual characteristics that affect the way the data can be
used to interpret geographic patterns.
For example, funds for many programs go directly to State
capitals or regional centers that redistribute the money or program
benefits to surrounding areas. Examples include block grant
programs and some procurement programs that involve a substantial
degree of subcontracting. The Census Bureau screens the data to
identify such programs, and we have added our own screens to
identify those programs in which 25 percent or more of their funds
are allocated to State capitals and programs in which only a small
percentage of funds are allocated to the county level. Those
programs that made it through our screens, which we believe are
fairly accurate to the county level, are called zero disposition code programs. For the
screened-out programs (disposition codes 1, 2), we believe it is
only meaningful to indicate geographic variations among States but
not among counties; and for some programs with disposition code 3,
even variations among States are not reliable since such programs
may include a large proportion of funding not allocated to
individual States.
The benefits of Federal programs do not all go to the places
that receive funds. For example, money spent on national parks
benefits all who visit the parks and not just those who live where
the parks are located. Rural electric loans are reported to the
location of the company headquarters and do not indicate other
places that receive subsidized electricity. Such "spillover"
benefits are present in almost all Federal programs and are not
reflected in the Federal funds data. In addition, these programs
affect communities in a variety of ways and have different
multiplier impacts on local income, employment, and community
well-being. Thus, even if the reported funding dispersion is
considered to be an accurate depiction of where the funds end up
being spent, care is required when interpreting the data as program
impacts.
Federal Funds data may represent either program expenditures or
program obligations, depending on the form of the data provided to
Census. Direct loans and loan guarantees are reported according to
the volume of loans obligated (for guarantees, it includes only the
portion of the loans that is guaranteed), and do not take into
account interest receipts or principal payments. Consequently,
these data do not always correspond to program totals reported in
government budget documents, such as budget authority, outlays, or
obligations.
Disposition Codes
Disposition codes were produced by ERS screening of data from
CFFR to determine the extent to which the data may reflect funds
that are tracked only to the State capital city or county. Programs
with funding allocated to counties but with less than 25 percent of
funding going to State capitals, or State or U.S. undistributed,
nationwide, were considered to be accurate at the county level
(disposition code 0). Those with 25 percent or more funding going
to State capitals or undistributed among counties (disposition
codes 1, 2, and 3) were considered to be inaccurate at the county
level because a significant amount of funding that was reported as
State undistributed or going to State capitals may ultimately be
passed through to other local areas in one form or another.
Each individual program has one of these four disposition codes
(0, 1, 2, and 3).
- Disposition Code = 0. Data considered accurate at the county
level, for all States.
- Disposition Code = 1. All data reported to the county level,
but 25 percent or more of the funds went to State capitals. Hence,
data are not considered accurate at the county level.
- Disposition Code = 2. At least 3 percent of funding reported to
the county level, but State or U.S. undistributed funds accounting
for more than 25 percent of the program total. This usually occurs
when Federal Funds data are available at the county level for some
States, but not for other States. Hence, the data are not generally
available or accurate at the county level.
- Disposition Code = 3. More than 97 percent of the funding is
either State or U.S. undistributed, hence not available at the
county level.
Object Codes
CFFR data are classified by broad object categories in
accordance with the CFFR Act. These correspond, in general, to the
classification used in annual Federal Budget. Two alphabetic
letters are used to designate the broad object category of Federal
expenditure. These include:
- Object Code = SW. Salaries and Wages. These include salaries
and wages paid to Federal Government employees, for example, to
Defense Department military employees-both active and inactive-and
civilian employees of the Defense Department, U.S. Postal Service,
U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and all other
Federal Government civilian employees.
- Object Code = PC. Procurement Contracts. Procurement contracts
of the Defense Department, U.S. Postal Service, and all other
civilian contracts.
- Object Code = DR. Direct Payments for individuals for
retirement and disability.
- Object Code = DO. Direct Payments to individuals, other than
for retirement and disability. Examples include unemployment
compensation benefit payments, Federal payments for excess earned
income tax credits, vocational rehabilitation for disabled
veterans, public safety officers' death benefits, Medicare hospital
insurance, Medicare supplementary medical insurance, food stamps,
and unemployment compensation benefit payments (Federal to
State).
- Object Code = DX. Direct Payments other than to individuals.
Examples include Government payments to the U.S. Postal Service,
Federal Employee Life and Health Insurance premium
payments-employee share, Legal Service Corporation payments, farm
payments, veterans' education assistance, rural rental assistance
payments, and interest reduction payments for rental and
co-operative housing for low-income families.
- Object Code = GG. General Grants. Include block grants, formula
grants, project grants, and cooperative agreements.
- Object Code = DL. Direct Loans. Examples include commodity
loans and purchases, emergency loans, farm ownership loans, farm
operating loans, soil and water loans, irrigation system
rehabilitation and betterment loans, intermediary relending
programs, economic injury disaster loans, physical disaster loans,
loans for small businesses, direct investment loans, water and
waste disposal systems for rural communities, and community
facilities loans.
- Object Code = GL. Guaranteed/Insured Loans. Examples include
farm operating loans, soil and water loans, business and industrial
loans, small business investment companies, small business loans,
State and local development company loans, bond guarantees for
surety companies, certified development company (504) loans,
foreign investment guarantees, water and waste disposal systems for
rural communities, community facilities loans, rural
electrification and rural telephone loans and loan guarantees,
rehabilitation mortgage insurance, mortgage insurance of
homes-specially of low- and medium- income families, veterans homes
and nursing homes-and higher education insured loans.
Individual program data were reported mainly for grants, direct
payments, and loans. Salaries and procurement data were generally
not available by Federal program. Instead, these expenditures were
broken down into subcategories for the Department of Defense and
selected other agencies. Each subcategory is treated as if it were
a separate Federal program, with a program ID Code beginning with
the relevant Object Code.
Several programs have more than one type of assistance, such as
loans and grants. These programs are incorporated in this data set
as if each type of assistance qualified as a separate program. For
example, the farm ownership loan program is broken up into two
components: direct loans (DL) and guaranteed loans (GL).
Functions Codes
Each Program is assigned a function code developed by ERS as
follows:
- Agriculture and natural resources functions. Includes
agricultural assistance (110), agricultural research and services
(120), forest and land management (130), and water and recreational
resources programs (140).
- Community resources functions. Includes business assistance
(210), community facilities (220), community and regional
development (230), environmental protection (240), housing other
than veterans (250), housing for veterans (260). Native American
general assistance programs (270), and transportation programs
(290).
- Defense and space functions. Includes aeronautics and space
(310), defense contracts (320), and defense payrolls and
administration (330).
- Human resources functions. Includes elementary and secondary
education (410), food and nutrition (420), health services (430),
social services (440), and training and employment (450).
- Income security functions. Includes medical and hospital
benefits (510), public assistance and unemployment compensation
(520), retirement, disability, and survivors social security
payments (530).
- National functions. Includes criminal justice and law
enforcement (610), energy (620), higher education and research
(630), and all other federal funds programs excluding insurance
programs (640).
Each year, ERS reviews the programs to assign function codes to
new programs in the data set, and sometimes existing programs
receive a new function code reflecting a change in function.
Program Identification Codes (Program Code)
Each program in the CFFR has a program identification code
patterned after its Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA)
program number. This is a six- character code. The first two
characters identify the Federal Department or Agency that
administers the program, followed by a decimal and three numeric
characters identifying the program. The two-digit codes
representing Federal departments and agencies as of 2001 were as
follows:
- 10 = Department of Agriculture
- 11 = Department of Commerce
- 12 = Department of Defense
- 14 = Department of Housing and Urban Development
- 15 = Department of the Interior
- 16 = Department of Justice
- 17 = Department of Labor
- 19 = Department of Defense
- 20 = Department of Transportation
- 21 = Department of Treasury
- 23 = Appalachian Regional Commission
- 30 = Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- 43 = National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 45 = National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities
- 47 = National Science Foundation
- 57 = Railroad Retirement Board
- 59 = Small Business Administration
- 60 = Smithsonian Institute
- 64 = Department of Veterans Affairs
- 66 = Environmental Protection Agency
- 70 = Overseas Private Investment Corporation
- 77 = Nuclear Regulatory Commission
- 81 = Department of Energy
- 83 = Federal Emergency Management Agency
- 84 = Department of Education
- 86 = Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
- 89 = National Archives and Records Administration
- 91 = International Peace
- 93 = Department of Health and Human Services
- 94 = Corporation for National and Community Service
- 96 = Social Security Administration
In recent years, new agency codes have been provided for new
agencies. For example, programs funding various nonprofit
organizations or foundations are now indicated by an agency code of
85, programs funding various Federal commissions and authorities,
including the Delta Regional Authority and the Denali Commission,
are now indicated by an agency code of 90; while the Homeland
Security Agency is listed with an agency code of 97.
Program names and their CFDA numbers sometimes change from year
to year, reflecting program changes and shifts from agency to
agency. Programs may also be in the data set one year and not in
the next due to unavailability of data. Hence, caution is required
when comparing funding from year to year.
If a CFDA program number did not exist, a pseudo CFDA code was
assigned by the agency submitting the data. This pseudo code
consists of two numeric characters (representing the agency prefix
in the CFDA), followed by the decimal and three alphabetic
characters. Pseudo codes are also used for some other items that do
not fall under officially recognized programs such as Federal
retirement payments, wages and salaries, etc. These pseudo codes
begin with two alphabetic characters, followed by three numeric
characters.
Excluded Programs and Territories
Census reports CFFR data for several insurance programs using an
Object Code = II. These data are excluded from the ERS Federal
Funds data files for individual States, because the reported
amounts reflect the value of property that is newly insured rather
than the amount of payments or claims associated with the program.
The ERS Federal Funds data files also exclude a few programs that
were targeted exclusively at U.S. Territories. (The data for these
excluded programs may be obtained directly from Census. They are
also present on the ERS MS Access file covering the Nation as a
whole.)
Other Data
Population
The county population estimates are from the Bureau of Economic
Analysis, and are for calendar years. For example, for 2005 Federal
funds data, the population data are for calendar year 2005.
Population data can be used to compute federal funds per person,
which is useful for making meaningful comparisons across
counties.
FIPS Codes
Five-digit FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) codes
are used to identify specific geographic areas. The first two
digits represent the State, the last three digits represent the
county (or county area). If the county is unknown, the amounts are
reported in the State undistributed column and the last three
digits of the FIPS are 999.