Distribution of Federal Emergency Expenditures

Report Outline
Federal Depression Emergency Expenditures
Federal Grants for Relief of Distress
Agricultural Adjustment Benefits
Distribution of Public Works Allotments
Federal Subsidies to the States
State Shares in Federal Emergency Expenditures
Special Focus

Federal Depression Emergency Expenditures

Emergency expenditures of the federal government in its efforts to combat depression and promote recovery are reported by the Treasury to have totaled $6,452,846,304 down to the end of the fiscal year 1934. This figure represents a government outlay of $52.55 for each man, woman, and child in the United States.

The revenues of the government showed the first upturn of the depression during the last fiscal year, increasing from $2,079,696,742 in 1933 to $3,115,554,050 in 1934—an increase of nearly 50 per cent. The revenues of the two fiscal years taken together, however, did not equal the emergency expenditures, falling short even of the government's ordinary operating expenses. All of the emergency expenditures, therefore, have been met through federal borrowing, with the exception of benefit payments to farmers, which are taken from the proceeds of special processing taxes.

Of the total expenditures summarized above, approximately $1,882,000,000 went for direct relief of economic distress through such agencies as the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and the Civil Works Administration, $1,107,000,000 for relief of agriculture through such agencies as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Farm Credit Administration, and $653,500,000 for the public works section of the relief and recovery program.