Sorting Out State Expenditure Pressures

This article provides some preliminary evidence and descriptive statistics on spending and on underlying demographic and economic characteristics of the states in the U.S. There is convergence in spending across states. This convergence is particularly strong for those states that start out with lower levels of spending, those that start behind grow faster. There is a positive relationship between income growth and spending growth for most categories of state and local spending. State and local spending growth in the 1980s was somewhat faster than in the 1970s, but much slower than in the 1960s.