Ten ‘Getter’ States Receive More in Fed Payments Than Taxed

A recent analysis by the Rockefeller Institute found that 40 states are “getters” while 10 are “givers.”

Forty states received more funds from the federal government than the tax revenues they send, resulting in a positive balance of payments. In the remaining 10 states, tax burdens were not offset.

In aggregate, the top 10 “getter” states obtain almost 15 percent of federal expenditures but only send about 9.5 percent of the total tax revenue received by Washington.

The “getter” states can be subdivided into two groups: high-income states with a large presence of federal workforce—meaning a lot of wage ...