US Income and Spending / Dashboard

US Deficit

Explore the gap between federal spending and net receipts across fiscal years. A deficit occurs when spending exceeds receipts; a surplus occurs when receipts exceed spending. This project uses Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) Tables 4 and 5 for those measures.

Deficit: Yearly Comparisons

Open in Tableau Public

Use the dashboard's controls to explore the gap between federal spending and net receipts. If the embedded view does not load or is difficult to use on your device, open it in Tableau Public using the link above.

Notes and observations

Reading the data

Compare complete, equivalent periods. Do not compare a partial current fiscal year against a full prior fiscal year.
Check the dashboard's coverage dates and active filters before drawing conclusions.
Displayed values are rounded to the nearest billion for clarity.
Compare Table 5 net outlays with Table 4 net receipts for the same reporting period. Spending minus receipts is positive for a deficit and negative for a surplus; check the dashboard's labels for its display convention.

A deficit measures the gap over a reporting period; it is not the total outstanding federal debt. Differences from the official Table 1 summary are explained in the reconciliation methodology.

Observations

Dashboard-specific observations will be added as the data is reviewed.

Data sources and processing

This dashboard brings together MTS Table 4: Receipts of the U.S. Government and MTS Table 5: Outlays of the U.S. Government, published by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Table 4 supplies net receipts after refunds; Table 5 supplies net outlays after applicable receipt offsets. Compare these measures for matching reporting periods to examine the deficit or surplus.

Official Treasury dataset and Table 4 API endpoint.
Table 5 API endpoint and Table 5 field documentation: spending, applicable receipts, net outlays, and reporting periods.
Table 4 field documentation: source fields, reporting periods, and units.
Collection and validation: how reports are downloaded and checked before loading.
Transformations and provenance: type conversion and source tracking.
Storage and corrections, exports and analysis, and refresh behavior.

The data pipeline and the published Tableau workbook are separate stages. Pipeline documentation does not verify the workbook's calculations, filters, joins, or refresh history. Check the published view's coverage before interpreting results.

US Net Income — explore the net receipts side of the comparison.
US Spending — compare federal outlays alongside net receipts.
US Income and Spending — return to the dashboard directory.
Monthly Treasury Statements — explore the source tables and reading guide.
Table 1 reconciliation — why this project uses Table 4 for net income and Table 5 for net spending.
Federal deficit and interest — context for receipts, spending, and borrowing.