The Trend in Recent State Expenditures

• DOI: 10.1177/000271622411300103
• Date: 01 May 1924
• Author: Austin F. Macdonald
• Published date: 01 May 1924
• Subject Matter: Articles

8

THE

ANNALS

OF

THE

AMERICAN

ACADEMY

that

they

comprise

39.4

per

cent

of

the

total

expenditures.

Stated

a

little

differently,

we

are

now

paying

more

than

$1,000,000,000

annually

on

ac-

count

of

debt,

which

is

very

nearly

double

what

the

entire

Government

was

costing

in

pre-war

days.

The

tables

for

Group

VII

and

Group

VIII

follow:

GROUP

VI-INTEREST

*

See

note

to

Group

IV.

GROUP

VIII-RETIREMENT

OF

PUBLIC

DEBT

The

Trend

in

Recent

State

Expenditures

By

AUSTIN

F.

MACDONALD,

PH.D.

University

of

Pennsylvania

IN

the

year

1913

the

forty-eight

states

of

the

Union

spent

about

382

million

dollars

for

governmental

pur-

poses.

In

1922

they

spent

somewhat

in

excess

of

one

billion,

280

million

dollars.

The

cost

of

operating

our

state

governments

increased,

therefore,

235

per

cent

in

the

nine-year

period

from

1913

to

1922.

Made

without

ex-

planation

or

reservation,

this

is

a

rather

startling

statement.

But

there

are

two

factors

which

obviously

must

be

taken

into

consideration

in

making

any

comparison

of

governmental

expendi-

tures

during

the

last

decade.

One

is

an

increase

of

35

per

cent

in

the

population

of

the

United

States;

the

other

is

an

in-

crease

of

49

per

cent

in

the

general

level

of

prices.

Reduced

to

a

per

capita

basis,

the

in-

crease

in

the

governmental

expendi-

tures

of

the

states

from

1913

to

1922

was

199

per

cent.

Costs

rose

gradually

until

1919;

after

that

year

they