The Fiscal Performance of Seventh District States in the 2000s

In a recent Chicago Fed Letter, Thom Walstrum examined the fiscal performance of Illinois’s state and local governments beginning in the late 1980s. His analysis showed that since at least the late 1980s, Illinois’s governments (as a whole) have consistently run a budget deficit. His analysis also revealed that the degree of overspending (or alternatively, undertaxing) by Illinois was greater than that of the average U.S. state and that growing pension liabilities have contributed significantly to Illinois’s budget deficit.

In this blog post, we expand the analysis to the other states in the Seventh Federal Reserve District.¹ Specifically, we document the expenditure and revenue patterns of District states since the early 2000s and compare them to those of the typical U.S. state.² We also examine the effect of the Great Recession on the fiscal performance of District states because it plays an outsized role in the overall fiscal performance of certain states over the period we examine.

As in the Fed Letter, we combine the expenditure and revenue data for state and local governments because states differ in which activities they fund at the state or local level. Also, as in the Fed Letter, to account for differences in the sizes of states’ economies, we report expenditure figures as percentages of gross state product (GSP) and revenues.³

Our analysis yields a number of interesting results. First, we find that the size of state and local governments (in terms of spending as a percentage of GSP) varies quite a bit among District states. Second, we find that the fiscal performance of state and local governments (in terms of spending as a percentage of revenues) also varies quite a bit. And finally, we find that though the Great Recession had a large negative impact on the fiscal performances of all District states, Illinois and Wisconsin were especially affected, primarily because the value of their pension systems’ assets declined sharply.

We first look at the size of state and local governments in District states in terms of spending as a percentage of GSP. Figure 1 shows total government expenditures as a percentage of GSP for the average U.S. state and for Seventh District states during fiscal years (FY) 2002–13. Indiana is consistently the lowest spender during this span, and it is well below the U.S. average. Iowa and Illinois are also below the national average for most of this period, though they catch up to it by FY2012. In contrast, Wisconsin’s spending is roughly the same as the typical U.S. state. Michigan tracked the national average closely until FY2007, but has been consistently above average since then. Figure 1 also shows a ramp-up in spending across all states in FY2010–11. This is the largely the result of states spending federal funds received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Figure 1. Expenditures as a percentage of Gross State Product

Table 1 summarizes figure 1 by taking the average of the percentages over FY2002–13. It also shows a breakdown of average spending by category. We now discuss the unique features of each state’s spending (as a percentage of GSP).

• Illinois’s total spending was below the U.S. average largely because of lower expenditures on education services and social services (and income maintenance). That said, Illinois spent more than the typical U.S. state on its insurance trust and pension liability increases, both of which are compensation for government workers, including those providing education and social services.
• Indiana’s total spending was below the U.S. average because of lower spending on most categories, though it spent a particularly low amount on pension liability increases compared with other states.
• Iowa’s total spending was below the national average (in spite of above-average spending on education and social services) because of below-average spending on its insurance trust and pension liability growth.
• Michigan’s spending was above the U.S. average largely because of higher spending on education services and its insurance trust.
• Wisconsin’s spending was quite close to the U.S. average; compared with the typical state, Wisconsin spent more on education services and its insurance trust, but less on pension liability growth.

Table 1. Average expenditures as a percentage of GSP: 2002-13

Next we look at each District state’s fiscal performance, which we define as total expenditures as a percentage of total revenues. We interpret lower percentages as better performance. It is important to note here that fiscal performance is independent of the overall size of a state’s governments, because all that matters is that the governments have enough revenues to cover their expenses. While small governments generally do not require the level of revenues that large governments do, small governments could still perform worse than their large counterparts if their revenues are not high enough. Figure 2 shows the time trends for expenditures as a percentage of revenues for each District state and the typical U.S. state. Two features of the figure stick out: First, with the exception of Illinois, District states are quite close to the U.S. average in terms of spending as a percentage of revenues. Second, while most states’ governments were hurt by the Great Recession (FY2008–09), Illinois’s and Wisconsin’s were hit particularly hard, while Indiana’s was not hit that bad.

Figure 2. Expenditures as a percentage of revenues

The first row of table 2 summarizes figure 2 by taking the average of the percentages over FY2002–13. Illinois and Wisconsin spent more out of their revenues than the typical U.S. state during this period, while Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan spent less. Because FY2009 was such an anomaly on account of the Great Recession, we also calculate the averages excluding it (second row). This changes the story quite a bit for Wisconsin governments, which then perform better than the U.S. average. (With this adjustment, Michigan governments perform slightly worse than the U.S. average.)

Table 2 also shows the percentage of total revenues that each spending category represents (calculated excluding FY2009). Examining expenditures in terms of revenue, as opposed to GSP, tells a different story for several states.

• Illinois’s total expenditures percentage is well above the U.S. average. Spending out of revenues on education is above that of the typical U.S. state, though it remains below that of the other District states. Illinois also spends more than the national average on public safety, environment and housing, interest on general government debt, its insurance trust, and pension liability growth.
• Indiana’s total expenditures percentage is below the U.S. average. It spends less than the national average on transportation, utilities, its insurance trust, and pension liability growth.
• Iowa’s total expenditures percentage is not only below the U.S. average but also the lowest among District states. Notably, its spending on public safety, utilities, its insurance trust, and pension liability growth is lower relative to the national average.
• Michigan’s total expenditures percentage is slightly above the U.S. average. Its education spending is the highest among District states and markedly higher than that of the typical U.S. state. But its spending on transportation, utilities, and pension liability growth is lower than the national average.
• Wisconsin’s total expenditures percentage is below the U.S. average. While its expenditures for education, public safety, and its insurance trust are above average, its expenditures for pension liability growth are below average.

Table 2. Average expenditures as a percentage of revenues: Fiscal years 2002-13

Table 2 shows that Illinois and Wisconsin were hit hardest by the Great Recession. After excluding FY2009, Illinois’s spending as a percentage of revenue decreases 6 percentage points and Wisconsin’s decreases 11 percentage points. These decreases are much larger than those for other District states and the typical U.S. state, which range from 1 to 4 percentage points. What is behind the substantial differences in fiscal performances in FY2009? We found that the source was not changes in expenditures, but changes in revenues. Table 3 shows revenues as a percentage of GSP for the typical U.S. state and states in the Seventh District. The first row is the average value during FY2002–13 excluding FY2009, the second row is the value for only FY2009, and the third row is the difference between the two. All states had lower-than-normal revenues in FY2009, but Illinois and Wisconsin fared particularly poorly. To understand why, we calculated the difference between FY2009 values and the average values of the other fiscal years for all revenue categories. General revenues were actually higher in FY2009 for the typical U.S. state and all District states. The source of the revenue declines was states’ insurance trusts. Most states saw the value of the assets in their insurance trusts fall during the Great Recession, and such declines are treated as negative revenues in the U.S. Census’s accounting framework. The insurance trust funds for Illinois and Wisconsin fared particularly badly in FY2009, which is why their expenditures-to-revenues ratios were so high over the period FY2002–13 (see the first row of table 2). That one bad year made a huge difference in Wisconsin’s overall fiscal performance over the period FY2002–13.

Table 3. Revenues as a percentage of GSP

Our exploration of the size and performance of District state governments reveals a surprising number of differences among them. There are states with relatively small governments that perform poorly (Illinois) and well (Indiana) and states with relatively large governments that perform poorly (Wisconsin) and well (Michigan). Some states were hit much harder than others during the Great Recession (compare Wisconsin and Indiana), and Wisconsin’s terrible performance in FY2009 shifted the state from being a good fiscal performer to being a bad one over our study period (FY2002–13). The most important reason for the differences in fiscal performance across states is differences in pension system management. Illinois would be closer in performance to the national average if its pension spending matched the national average, and Wisconsin would be better than average if its pension system’s assets hadn’t lost so much value during the Great Recession.

Footnotes

¹ The Seventh Federal Reserve District (which is served by the Chicago Fed) comprises all of Iowa and most of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In this blog post, we analyze the entirety of each state that falls within the District.

² Unlike for the analysis of just Illinois, we are limited to the period after 1999 because we do not have pension system data for other states before 2000.

³ For more details on the methodology, see the Fed Letter. Note that data on pension liabilities for the Seventh District states, excluding those for Illinois, come from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

The views expressed in this post are our own and do not reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago or the Federal Reserve System.