When federal budget cuts roll around, Georgia and metro Atlanta probably won’t feel as much sting as other parts of the nation because Uncle Sam hasn’t been particularly generous around here anyway, statistics show.
The state ranked third from the bottom in the amount the federal government spent per resident in 2009, the latest figures available.
At $8,538 per person, federal expenditure in Georgia was higher than in Utah and Nevada, but far behind the nation’s top recipients — Alaska, Virginia and Hawaii — which got roughly $20,000 per resident, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The nationwide average was $10,396.
Georgia’s below-average share of the federal budget could at least make it a smaller target as lawmakers face the task of hacking some $2 trillion from federal spending over the coming decade. That goal — including $917 billion in initial reductions over a decade — is part of the compromise President Barack Obama and Congress reached this month to avoid a potential first-time default on the federal debt.
While it’s unclear where the deepest cuts will be, it is clear that federal outlays support a smaller share of Georgia’s economy than in some states, said Jeffrey Humphreys, director of the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. “Georgia is not overexposed,” he said.
Some of metro Atlanta’s counties are even less dependent on the federal government, in terms of spending per resident. Federal spending per capita in 2009 was $6,682 in DeKalb, $4,399 in Cobb, $3,458 in Gwinnett and $4,379 in Clayton. The $15,112-per-person tab in Fulton County, which includes the state Capitol, was inflated by large federal grants that were distributed statewide.
Still, some Georgia counties with large populations of people who receive federal transfer payments — such as Social Security, unemployment or food stamps — could feel a sting from future federal budget cuts, said Humphreys.
More recent data from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis show that such transfer payments to Georgians jumped from an annual pace of $53.4 billion at the beginning of 2009 to almost $61.9 billion in the first quarter of this year.
Georgia’s economic recovery will suffer, Humphreys said, if those are cut too soon.
“We need to get religion on the budget,” he said, “but we need to phase in the austerity measures.”
Likewise, counties with large military bases could also feel the impact of budget cuts.
Federal spending topped $1 billion annually and exceeded the national per-capita average in Bibb, Houston, Bryan, Chattahoochee, Chatham, Columbia and Richmond counties, which all contain or neighbor large military bases. In Muscogee County, where part of Fort Benning is located, federal expenditure topped $1.7 billion but was below the national average per resident.
The federal government spent $83.9 billion in Georgia in its 2009 fiscal year, according to census figures. The total doesn’t include interest paid on federal debt or spending overseas.
Payments to individuals, including Social Security, disability and federal pension checks, accounted for 30 percent. Federal employees’ paychecks accounted for another 16 percent, while other individual payments such as crop insurance claims, earned income credits, unemployment, student aid and food stamps accounted for 22 percent.
State and local governments and other organizations received about $19 billion, or 23 percent, as grants for scores of programs aimed at projects such as building highways and supporting education. Federal contractors, such as the Lockheed Martin plant in Marietta, received 9 percent of the statewide total, or $7.7 billion.
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