Updated September 22, 2023
Tracking Federal Awards in States and Congressional Districts
Using USAspending.gov
Overview
during the selected fiscal year, regardless of when the
USAspending.gov, available to the public at
award initially started. Users can opt to limit searches to
http://www.USAspending.gov, is a government source for
new awards only. Details on an individual award,
data on federal awards by state, congressional district (CD),
including transaction history and subawards, may be
zip code, city, and county. The awards data in
viewed by clicking on the Award ID. The results list
USAspending.gov is provided by federal agencies and
displayed can be downloaded at either the award or
represents grants, contracts, loans, and other financial
transaction level, along with additional details about
assistance. Grant awards include money the federal
each award, into a spreadsheet. The award search is
government commits for projects in states, local
continually being developed and improved, so new
jurisdictions, regions, territories, and tribal reservations, as
features may have become available since the
well as payments for eligible needs to help individuals and
publication of this report.
families. Contract awards refer to bids and agreements the
• Spending Explorer enables “big picture” browsing of
federal government makes for specific goods and services.
federal spending obligations and offers interactive data
USAspending.gov does not include data on actual spending
visualization by budget function, agency, and object
by recipients.
class. With this tool, users can see the budget function
breakdown by categories such as Social Security,
USAspending.gov also provides tools for examining the
Medicare, and national defense; obligated amounts by
broader picture of federal spending obligations within the
agency; and obligations by object class categories such
categories of budget function, agency, and object class.
as grants, contracts, and personnel compensation and
Budget function refers to the major purpose that the
benefits.
spending serves, such as Social Security, Medicare, and
•
national defense. Object class refers to the type of item or
Profiles of Agencies and Federal Accounts feature data
on each agency’
service purchased by the federal government, such as
s budgetary resources, a dollar amount
grants, contracts, and personnel compensation and benefits.
that has been obligated (or committed to be spent)
against those budgetary resources, and the amount the
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred multiple pieces of
agency has obligated for awards. Users can also browse
legislation providing relief to individuals and families, state
a list of more than 2,000 federal accounts and track
and local governments, businesses, and healthcare
spending obligations within each. The data in this
providers. USAspending.gov provides access to data on
section is presented visually through interactive charts.
COVID-19 funding through visual displays and specific
• Profiles of States and Territories provides tables,
search filters. See CRS Report R46491, Resources for
interactive maps, and graphs showing a breakdown of a
Tracking Federal COVID-19 Spending, for more
total awarded amount to each state and territory back to
information.
FY2008. Breakdowns include totals by award type,
county, and CD. Profiles also include top five rankings
Additional search filters to enable tracking awards made
in various categories, such as awarding agencies and
through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L.
recipients.
117-58) have also been added to USAspending.gov.
• Profiles of Recipients contains information on entities
Using USAspending.gov to locate and compile accurate
that have received federal awards in the form of
data on federal awards presents challenges, in part, because
contracts, grants, loans, or other financial assistance
of continued data quality issues that have been identified by
back to FY2008. Recipient profiles include data on
the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
award trends over time and top five rankings in various
Researchers need to be aware that search results may be
categories.
incomplete or contain inaccuracies.
• Data Download allows bulk exporting of large,
pregenerated award data sets by agency, award type, and
USAspending.gov includes the following features:
fiscal year through the Award Data Archive. The custom
download pages—Custom Award Data and Custom
• Award Search of prime and subaward data back to
Account Data (which covers all spending data, including
FY2008 allows filtering by award type, awarding
nonaward spending)—also allow downloading of large
agency, recipient, country, state, zip, city, county, CD,
data sets but provide additional filtering options.
and other criteria. To identify where money is being
spent, search on Place of Performance versus Recipient
Location. Search results include awards that are active
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Tracking Federal Awards in States and Congressional Districts Using USAspending.gov
Key Challenges in Tracking Awards
“current” (2023-onward) CD boundaries. Searching
Key challenges may be usefully considered in two general
current CD boundaries will enable capturing historical
categories: (1) reporting issues and (2) pass-through issues.
award data within current district borders.
In addition, tracking awards in CDs presents several
• CDs that include state capitals may sometimes appear to
specific issues that are addressed separately below.
receive more federal awards because state administering
agencies (SAAs) pass through funds for projects
Reporting Issues
throughout the state.
Federal agencies are required to submit reports on awards
•
transactions within 30 days after they are implemented.
Federal grant or procurement funds may pass through
There may be a longer lag-time with data from the
various administrative levels (e.g., to states via block
Department of Defense, generally 90 days. Although this
grants, then to local jurisdictions, including different
reporting requirement is in place, issues still remain
CDs) before they are actually spent. Therefore,
involving of the data’s completeness, consistency, and
searching on Place of Performance rather than Recipient
accuracy (see “Background on USAspending.gov”).
Location will yield results that more accurately reflect
ultimate award destinations.
Pass-Through Issues
Most federal grants funding is awarded to states, which then
Background on USAspending.gov
pass through funds to eligible recipients elsewhere in the
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act
state. Funds may then be further subawarded or
of 2006 (FFATA; P.L. 109-282) required the Office of
subcontracted (see Figure 1). This sublevel location may be
Management and Budget (OMB) to create a public database
a project’s place of performance as opposed to the initial
to enable tracking of federal funds awarded to the final
recipient location. Consider the following pass-through
recipient level. This can be challenging because federal
scenarios:
funding that is awarded to states or contractors may then be
passed through or subawarded to local entities or
• A grant award may pass through different jurisdictions
subcontractors (see Figure 1).
in a state (located in different CDs) before reaching the
final place of performance.
In addition, because of continued data quality issues in
•
USAspending.gov, information in the database may still be
Federal grant monies may first go to the state (an agency
incomplete and inaccurate (for example, see Government
or agencies in the state capital in one or more CDs), then
Accountability Office report GAO-22-105427 on data
be distributed to a city or county government (in one or
quality, available at https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-
more additional CDs), which then may subaward funds
105427).
to an organization that spends the money in other CDs.
• Procurement awards may be given to a corporation
Under requirements of P.L. 113-101, the Digital
headquartered in one state (and one CD). The company
Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act),
may spend the money manufacturing the purchased
responsibility for the database passed to the Department of
product at one or more of its manufacturing facilities in
the Treasury. The act required Treasury and OMB to set
one or more additional states (and CDs).
uniform data standards to be used across all federal
agencies and provide additional guidance to agencies for
Figure 1. Examples of Federal Spending Streams
posting data on USAspending.gov.
Recipients at Multiple Levels
For more information on USAspending.gov, see the
website’s About page at https://www.usaspending.gov/#/
about and Frequently Asked Questions at
https://usaspending-help.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/
115000739433-Frequently-Ask-Questions-.
Related CRS Products
CRS Report R44027, Tracking Federal Awards:
USAspending.gov and Other Data Sources, by Jennifer
Teefy.

Source: Jerry Brito, George Washington Univ., 2009; and CRS,
CRS Report R44374, Federal Grant Financial Reporting
2016.
Requirements and Databases: Frequently Asked Questions,
Specific Challenges in Tracking Awards by
by Natalie Keegan.
Congressional District

When searching for CD data, note the following:
• CD borders can change significantly with decennial
Jennifer Teefy, Senior Research Librarian
redistricting. There are options to search for awards
IF10231
within either “original” (pre-2023) CD boundaries or
https://crsreports.congress.gov

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Tracking Federal Awards in States and Congressional Districts Using USAspending.gov


Disclaimer
This document was prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). CRS serves as nonpartisan shared staff to
congressional committees and Members of Congress. It operates solely at the behest of and under the direction of Congress.
Information in a CRS Report should not be relied upon for purposes other than public understanding of information that has
been provided by CRS to Members of Congress in connection with CRS’s institutional role. CRS Reports, as a work of the
United States Government, are not subject to copyright protection in the United States. Any CRS Report may be
reproduced and distributed in its entirety without permission from CRS. However, as a CRS Report may include
copyrighted images or material from a third party, you may need to obtain the permission of the copyright holder if you
wish to copy or otherwise use copyrighted material.

https://crsreports.congress.gov | IF10231 · VERSION 18 · UPDATED

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