Public vs. Private Spending

by Kate Piercy The Mercatus Center’s Research Fellow Matt Mitchell used data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to analyze the evolution of state, local, and private spending since 1950. Mitchell created a chart showing the spending level for each year from 1950 to 2009 and compares spending by state and local governments to spending in...

by Kate Piercy

The Mercatus Center’s Research Fellow Matt Mitchell used data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis to analyze the evolution of state, local, and private spending since 1950.

Mitchell created a chart showing the spending level for each year from 1950 to 2009 and compares spending by state and local governments to spending in the private sector. He does so by graphing all spending in terms of its 1950 level.

What did he find? A startling difference, reporting that “since 1950, private spending has increased 5-fold while state and local government spending has increased nearly 10-fold.”