About One Quarter of Stimulus Money Paid Out

We’ve updated our interactive Stimulus Progress Bar, which tracks the flow of Recovery Act funds through federal agencies. These latest numbers show the federal government has spent $120 billion, or a little more than 20 percent of the $580 billion in actual spending included in the act. When you add the $63 billion in tax cuts already issued, the government has spent $183 billion since the Recovery Act was passed in February—just shy of a quarter of the total funds appropriated by Congress.

But beware: It’s possible that the amount paid out is greater than a quarter. We got the $63 billion in tax cuts figure from Recovery.gov, but the site only covers the period up until the end of August. It’s likely more tax cuts have been issued since August. We’ll update our numbers as soon as Recovery.gov updates theirs.

As we’ve noted before, different agencies commit and spend their stimulus money at very different speeds. With our Stimulus Progress Bar, you can see how much stimulus money each agency was awarded; how much they’ve committed to specific projects, and how much money has actually gone out the door. (Here’s more about what those different steps actually mean.)