Congress responded to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with supplemental appropriations measures providing relief and assistance to individuals and families, state and local governments, businesses, health care providers, and other entities. For more information, see CRS Report R46474, Laws Enacted in Response to COVID-19: Resources for Congressional Offices, by Meredith Sund.
This report provides selected sources for tracking COVID-19 relief and assistance spending. It contains links to and information on government sources detailing spending amounts at various levels, including consolidated spending by multiple government agencies, spending by individual government agencies, and spending by recipient types and geographies. The sources themselves are large government databases, individual agencies, oversight entities, and selected nongovernmental entities that attempt to repackage information on spending amounts obtained from available government sources.
Many of the sources discussed in this report are no longer updated due to programs ending or funding no longer being available.
For general information on resources for tracking federal funds, see CRS Report R44027, Tracking Federal Awards: USAspending.gov and Other Data Sources, by Jennifer Teefy.
USAspending.gov tracks federal contract and grant awards, loans, direct payments, and other federal assistance at the state, congressional district, and local levels. As mandated by an Office of Management and Budget memorandum, federal agencies must identify specific COVID-19 spending in their reporting for the database. The database provides a description of known data limitations, which explains that data by location, for some programs, are not fully reported in USAspending.gov, such as the Department of the Treasury's economic impact payments and the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS's) Provider Relief Fund. Users can view COVID-19 spending data through the following features:
For general information on USAspending.gov, including searching tips, see CRS In Focus IF10231, Tracking Federal Awards in States and Congressional Districts Using USAspending.gov, by Jennifer Teefy.
PRAC is a federal entity created by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act; P.L. 116-136).1 It provides downloadable COVID-19 funding data from USAspending.gov and other sources.2 Data are presented by different categories, including agency and state. PRAC also links directly to agency sites for data on selected programs, such as Economic Impact Payment data on the Internal Revenue Service site and Paycheck Protection Program data on the Small Business Administration site.
PRAC's website is integrated with the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency's website, the federal inspector general community's oversight and coordination body. For more information, see CRS Insight IN11343, The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee: Organization and Duties, by Ben Wilhelm.
The CARES Act required GAO to report on its ongoing monitoring and oversight efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. GAO issues periodic, detailed reports that include updates on the allocation of obligated funds within categories such as relief for health care providers, COVID-19 testing, unemployment insurance, housing protections, and education. The reports are listed on GAO's COVID-19 federal response page and include tables showing total budgetary resources, total obligations, and total expenditures in broad categories as well as further details on programs within these categories in the appendixes and enclosures.
The CARES Act created the CRF, which provided $150 billion in direct assistance to state, territorial, local, and tribal governments based on population. See CRS Report R46990, General State and Local Fiscal Assistance and COVID-19: Eligible Purposes, Allocations, and Use Data, by Grant A. Driessen; for CRF allocations by state, territory, and government type, see Table 1.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) provides descriptions of and links to state CRF oversight plans and a database detailing state CRF actions.
ARPA provided Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) totaling $350 billion in assistance to state, local, territorial, and tribal governments. Treasury provides data on allocations for
Treasury also provides access to recipients' self-reported data on usage of fiscal recovery funds for specific projects. The largest recipients submit quarterly data,5 whereas smaller recipients report annually.6 Treasury does not release tribal governments' reporting information due to privacy considerations. Reports with quarterly and annual data can be found on the SLFRF Public Data page.
Several nongovernment sources also tracked ARPA fiscal recovery funds at the state and local levels. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) created a database to enable tracking obligations and expenditures of these funds by state using information in legislation and executive orders. Additionally, the National League of Cities, in partnership with the National Association of Counties and the Brookings Institution, created a Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker using recipients' self-reported data to Treasury. The tool features filtering options for viewing data by location and type of expenditure.
For more information, see the following CRS products: CRS Report R46990, General State and Local Fiscal Assistance and COVID-19: Eligible Purposes, Allocations, and Use Data, by Grant A. Driessen; CRS Insight IN11665, The American Rescue Plan Act, Section 9901—The Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund, by Grant A. Driessen; and CRS Insight IN11664, The American Rescue Plan Act, Section 9901—The Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, by Grant A. Driessen.
The ERAP made funding available to assist households that are unable to pay rent or utilities. Two separate programs have been established: (1) ERA1 provided up to $25 billion under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, and (2) ERA2 provided up to $21.55 billion under ARPA.7 The funds were provided directly to states, U.S. territories, local governments, and (in the case of ERA1) Indian tribes.
The Department of the Treasury provided initial data on payments to states and eligible units of local government and to tribes and tribally designated housing entities under ERA1. Treasury also provided initial data on state, local government, and territory allocations under ERA2 and provided updated data on ERA 1 and 2 reallocations.
Additionally, Treasury provides cumulative quarterly aggregated assistance data8 reported by grantees, including by state, county, and city.
For more information, see CRS Report R46688, Pandemic Relief: The Emergency Rental Assistance Program, by Grant A. Driessen, Maggie McCarty, and Libby Perl.
The HAF was established to prevent mortgage delinquencies and defaults, foreclosures, loss of utilities or home energy services, and displacement of homeowners experiencing financial hardship after January 21, 2020. The Treasury provides data on allocations from this program by state (including the District of Columbia) and territory. Quarterly reporting by participants can be found on the HAF Reporting site under "Program Data Reported by Participants."9 For more information on the HAF, see CRS Report R46830, The Homeowner Assistance Fund in the American Rescue Plan Act: In Brief, by Katie Jones.
ARPA provided $10 billion to fund the SSBCI, which will, in turn, fund state, territory, and tribal government small business credit support and investment programs. The Treasury has posted information on allocations for states, territories, the District of Columbia, and tribal governments (in aggregate). Treasury posts quarterly reports in the "News and Announcements" section of the SSBCI site that show funds deployed by state.10 For more information on the SSBCI and data on program allocations by state, see CRS Report R42581, State Small Business Credit Initiative: Implementation and Funding Issues, by Robert Jay Dilger, Grant A. Driessen, and Adam G. Levin.
The CCPF provides $10 billion in payments to eligible governments to carry out critical capital projects that directly enable work, education, and health monitoring, including remote options, in response to coronavirus pandemic. Treasury provides information on allocations for states and territories and Freely Associated States. This provision allocated tribal governments and the State of Hawaii (for Native Hawaiian programs) equal shares of $167,504.
Treasury also reports aggregated CCPF award amounts for each state, territory, and Freely Associated State as well as for tribal governments.
For more information on the CCPF, see CRS Report R46990, General State and Local Fiscal Assistance and COVID-19: Eligible Purposes, Allocations, and Use Data, by Grant A. Driessen.
Several unemployment relief measures were enacted in response to COVID-19. The Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration provided updated data on funding by state through each of these programs.
The Federal Reserve (Fed) established the Municipal Liquidity Facility to help state and local governments better manage cash flow pressures in order to continue to serve households and businesses in their communities. See more about this and other Fed programs in the next section, "Businesses and Nonprofit Organizations."
State and local budget offices may also be resources for information related to COVID-19 spending; publicly available information may vary from one jurisdiction to another.
The Small Business Administration periodically publishes reports and data on its programs, including data on approved loans and other assistance for programs supporting disaster assistance and recovery:
For information on programs supporting small businesses that are administered from other federal agencies, see CRS Insight IN11301, Small Businesses and COVID-19: Relief and Assistance Resources, by Maria Kreiser.
For information on Treasury- and Fed-facilitated business assistance programs, see CRS Report R46329, Treasury and Federal Reserve Financial Assistance in Title IV of the CARES Act (P.L. 116-136), coordinated by Andrew P. Scott; and CRS Insight IN11368, Larger Businesses and COVID-19: Financial Relief and Assistance Resources, by Julie Jennings.
Several COVID-19 measures provided economic relief to individuals and families through direct economic impact payments. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides statistics on the first, second, and third rounds of payments (made through the CARES Act the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, and ARPA, respectively) by adjusted gross income, state, and filing status. For more information, see CRS Report R46415, COVID-19 and Direct Payments: Overview and Resources, coordinated by Margot L. Crandall-Hollick.
Additionally, ARPA included an advanced child tax credit through which families received monthly payments. The IRS provides statistics on this credit by adjusted gross income, state, and filing status.
The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) produced estimates of the advanced child tax credit payments by congressional district. For each district in 2021, the JEC provides the estimated cumulative total payment amount, the total number of payments received, and the total number of children who were eligible to receive the benefit.
For more information on the advanced child tax credit, see CRS Report R46900, The Expanded Child Tax Credit for 2021: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), by Margot L. Crandall-Hollick.
On USAspending.gov, COVID-19 award data for several HHS programs are not tracked to the state and local levels, including
However, HHS provides data by recipient, state, and city for these programs on its website, through the above links. These sites enable tracking through an interactive table and downloading of data into different formats, including spreadsheets and PDFs.
Federal agency websites may be resources for information on specific COVID-19 awards; the amount and format of available information varies from agency to agency. As an example, the Department of Education site provides funding and spending data by state from the Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) and further breaks the data down by programs under the ESF.14
The following resources offer additional perspectives on a wide range of COVID-19 funding. CRS has not independently verified the data provided by these sources.
| 1. |
The CARES Act created two additional oversight entities: (1) the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR), at https://www.sigpr.gov/, and (2) the Congressional Oversight Commission, at https://coc.senate.gov/. |
| 2. |
PRAC previously presented COVID-19 funding data through various facets and interactive graphics. |
| 3. |
See https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-state-local-and-tribal-governments/state-and-local-fiscal-recovery-fund/non-entitlement-units for the definition of "non-entitlement unit." |
| 4. |
See https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Allocation-Methodology-for-MetropolitanCities-508A.pdf for the definition of "metropolitan city." |
| 5. |
States, territories, metro cities and counties with a population of more than 250,000 or an award over $10 million. |
| 6. |
Metro cities and counties with populations less than 250,000 and allocations under $10 million. |
| 7. |
ERA1 funds generally expired on September 30, 2022, and ERA2 funds generally expired on September 30, 2025. |
| 8. |
The last update includes data through 2025 Q2. |
| 9. |
The last update includes data through 2025 Q2. |
| 10. |
The latest data were posted on September 17, 2024. |
| 11. |
The borrower's location is the address from its application and may not include all locations in which the recipient operates. |
| 12. |
The borrower's location is the address from its application and may not include all locations in which the recipient operates. |
| 13. |
These programs have ended. See CRS Insight IN11368, Larger Businesses and COVID-19: Financial Relief and Assistance Resources, by Julie Jennings for more information. |
| 14. |
These programs include (1) a Governor's Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund, which includes the Emergency Assistance to Non-Public Schools (EANS) program; (2) an Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund; and (3) a Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEER). For more information, see CRS Report R47027, Education Stabilization Fund Programs Funded by the CARES Act, CRRSAA, and ARPA: Background and Analysis, by Rebecca R. Skinner, Joselynn H. Fountain, and Cassandria Dortch. |