California is the biggest "donor state" to rest of U.S.

There are various ways to calculate which U.S. states are “donor states.” Donor states are states in which businesses and residents pay more in taxes to the federal government than the federal government distributes in spending there. The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government of the State University of New York keeps one such dataset, and it shows that California was, by far, the biggest “donor state” in 2022.

The Rockefeller Institute dataset shows that California and its residents and businesses paid $692 billion in taxes to the federal government in 2022 and received $609 billion in federal funding. The $83.1 billion difference between those two figures made California the biggest donor state by far in 2022, surpassing the #2 donor state New Jersey by nearly three-to-one. On a per capita basis, California was the #4 donor state at $2,129 per capita, trailing Massachusetts ($3,873), New Jersey ($3,123), and Washington State ($2,289).

Higher-income states like Virginia can offset these issues in the donor/recipient state calculation because of the large number of federal employees and government contractors there. “Other states, such as New Mexico and Kentucky, have lower income levels but high levels of Federal spending due to large government and military facilities or large numbers of government contractors.”

In the 2022 Rockefeller Institute data now on its website, including federal funding for COVID, Virginia was the #1 recipient state, receiving $108 billion more in federal spending in 2022 than its residents and businesses paid in federal taxes. Maryland was #2 at $81 billion, Texas was #3 at $71 billion, and North Carolina was #4 at $53 billion. On a per capita basis, the top recipient states were New Mexico, Maryland, Virginia, Alaska, and West Virginia.

https://jasonsisney.substack.com/p/california-biggest-donor-state-to