2009 Federal Spending for the 50 States
votes President Obama received in the 2008 presidential race, percentage of poverty, state region, and total amount of state and local employees per 1,000 populations. The U.S. Census Bureau website provided the data from 2009 for each of the independent variables, except for percentage of votes Obama received in 2008 and percentage of poverty in 2009. The National Public Radio (NPR) website provided the total percentages of the 2009 poverty level and total votes Obama received in the 2008 presidential election for each state. All independent variables and the total amount of federal spending for 2009 are presented below in Table 1, with a brief description and source for each. Table 1 Variables, Characteristics, and Sources
The first dependent variable, the total 2009 federal spending per capita, ranged from $7,148 to $20,447 per capita. Nevada was the state with the lowest federal spending per capita and Alaska was the state with the highest federal spending per capita. The mean for the federal spending dependent variable was $10,932.02 per capita, which was almost half of what Alaska received. The transportation spending per capita was the next dependent variable and the range for this variable was $199 to $1,400 per capita. The state that received the lowest amount of transportation spending per capita was Massachusetts while Alaska received the highest amount per capita. The mean for transportation spending per capita in 2009 was $336.66 per capita. The third dependent variable, education spending per capita, ranged from $218 to $631 per student, which revealed similar results as the fed-
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