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What kind of spending it is

Most federal money is not a contract. In FY2026, direct payments to individuals were 61.8% of obligations and contracts were 13.8%.

American Factbook Research

The mix in FY2026

Federal obligations by award type, fiscal year 2026
InstrumentObligationsShareWhat it is
Direct payments$3.0 trillion61.8%Benefits paid to individuals, including Social Security and Medicare. The largest instrument by far, and the one least like what people picture as federal spending.
Grants$1.2 trillion24.1%Grants and cooperative agreements, mostly to states, universities and nonprofits.
Contracts$660.0 billion13.8%Procurement: the government buying goods and services, from aircraft to cleaning.
Other$11.5 billion0.2%Everything the publisher does not classify elsewhere, including awards it marks as not specified.
Insurance$5.7 billion0.1%The face value of federal insurance. Reported very differently before FY2014, which is why it is shown on its own rather than inside "other".
Loans$-5.0 billion-0.1%The face value of loans and loan guarantees. Not money paid out, and not money the government expects to lose.

How the mix has moved

Insurance reached $1.4 trillion in FY2013 and has not been near it since. One line per instrument. They are drawn together to show their relative size and shape, not to be added: loans and insurance are face value rather than money, and a contract and a benefit payment are different things. The insurance line is why a chart of the total falls at FY2014 — that fall is a change in what was reported, not in what was spent.
U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service — USAspending API v2
The figures behind this chart
Insurance reached $1.4 trillion in FY2013 and has not been near it since. One line per instrument. They are drawn together to show their relative size and shape, not to be added: loans and insurance are face value rather than money, and a contract and a benefit payment are different things. The insurance line is why a chart of the total falls at FY2014 — that fall is a change in what was reported, not in what was spent.
Fiscal yearDirect paymentsGrantsContractsOtherInsuranceLoans
2008$1.1 trillion$391.5 billion$536.7 billion$6.0 billion$6.3 billion$322.3 million
2009$1.3 trillion$671.6 billion$534.9 billion$7.9 billion$444.0 billion$710.2 million
2010$1.1 trillion$627.1 billion$534.2 billion$3.5 billion$237.8 billion$3.0 billion
2011$921.0 billion$575.3 billion$533.0 billion$8.1 billion$1.3 trillion$2.9 billion
2012$1.5 trillion$542.7 billion$514.2 billion$8.4 billion$1.3 trillion$-249.3 million
2013$1.6 trillion$531.7 billion$457.7 billion$9.9 billion$1.4 trillion$1.9 billion
2014$1.7 trillion$603.4 billion$439.8 billion$58.2 billion$8.7 billion$6.1 billion
2015$1.8 trillion$626.4 billion$430.5 billion$67.7 billion$6.6 billion$4.3 billion
2016$1.9 trillion$674.1 billion$463.2 billion$77.3 billion$6.7 billion$2.3 billion
2017$1.9 trillion$716.7 billion$500.8 billion$71.6 billion$11.6 billion$1.8 billion
2018$2.0 trillion$752.7 billion$545.4 billion$72.7 billion$16.7 billion$5.5 billion
2019$2.1 trillion$761.3 billion$578.0 billion$74.8 billion$8.5 billion$-6.7 billion
2020$2.7 trillion$965.7 billion$657.2 billion$76.9 billion$11.2 billion$549.2 billion
2021$2.9 trillion$1.4 trillion$632.8 billion$87.6 billion$13.1 billion$274.8 billion
2022$2.6 trillion$1.1 trillion$680.1 billion$106.9 billion$27.3 billion$5.5 billion
2023$2.9 trillion$1.1 trillion$746.0 billion$62.2 billion$19.4 billion$-5.7 billion
2024$2.9 trillion$1.2 trillion$740.1 billion$31.6 billion$7.2 billion$-1.7 billion
2025$3.3 trillion$1.2 trillion$778.0 billion$17.4 billion$8.7 billion$496.9 million
2026$3.0 trillion$1.2 trillion$660.0 billion$11.5 billion$5.7 billion$-5.0 billion

What this data cannot show

  • These are the publisher’s own groupings of its award type codes. They are not equivalent quantities: loans and insurance are face value, a contract is a purchase, and a direct payment is a benefit paid to a person.
  • A group can be negative in a year. That means deobligations exceeded obligations for that instrument, which is a real fact about the year rather than a missing figure.
  • The open fiscal year, FY2026, is incomplete, so its shares are the shares so far rather than the shares of a year.

Related

Sources

  • USAspending API v2 — U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service · U.S. Government work, public domain (17 U.S.C. 105) · retrieved September 19, 2026

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