Report: Wisconsin receives less per resident from the federal government compared to other states

While Wisconsin receives less per resident from the federal government compared to other states, cuts to that funding could still have significant impacts.

That’s particularly true for seniors, veterans, students, the disabled, and low-income families, according to a new Wisconsin Policy Forum report. 

The report largely relies on 2022 data on federal taxes and spending from the Rockefeller Institute of Government in New York to weigh the potential impact of funding cuts. 

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WPF notes in 2022, Wisconsin ranked 41st in the country for federal funding spent on average per resident.

Still, federal funding in Wisconsin exceeds that of local and state governments combined. In federal fiscal year 2022, Wisconsin residents, businesses and local and state governments and nonprofits received $86.46 billion from the federal government, about $14,700 per person. That amounts to about a quarter of personal income in the state in 2022. 

Considering the scope of federal funding in Wisconsin, the report notes, “even modest changes in that spending could have substantial effects here.” 

The report says several federal programs have more than 1 million participants in Wisconsin, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. 

Wisconsin residents received more than $56 billion in direct payments to individuals from federal programs in 2022, according to the report, about $9,545 per resident. That included $29 billion for Social Security, $13 billion for Medicare, and $7.6 billion for Medicaid. 

Other highlights from the report include: 

*Areas of the state like Milwaukee depend heavily on federal programs, such as Medicaid, food stamps and education aid due to poverty. The report notes Milwaukee Public Schools had the fifth-highest amount of per-pupil federal funding in the 2019-20 school year among the highest-poverty districts. 

“Though these funds do not fully cover the added costs of educating students with disabilities and other obstacles such as poverty, these revenues are critical to MPS, and any reductions to them would be keenly felt,” the report says. 

*Wisconsin received more than $14 billion in 2022 for federal grants, such as for health care, low-income assistance, transportation infrastructure, disaster relief, and criminal justice programs. The state also received $6.8 billion in 2022 for contracts and procurement by the federal government. 

*Ongoing spending increases continue nationally despite funding cuts or efforts to cut funding at the federal level. Federal outlays for January through April 2025 totaled nearly $2.4 trillion, higher than the $2.2 trillion for that period last year. 

WPF posits that federal changes could have substantial fiscal impacts on state and local governments, which will have to decide whether to backfill the cuts. 

“Even when state and local officials opt not to offset the federal cuts, they may still affect local budgets indirectly,” the report says. “For example, cuts to federal housing programs could lead to increases in homelessness and in turn on local spending on services such as law enforcement and the courts.”