Follow the flow › Step 14 of 16 · Money path
14. Government wages
Part of every appropriation pays the people who work for the government: soldiers, park rangers, inspectors, clerks. Pay scales are public, and totals show up as personnel spending.
Show sources for:
Who holds the money or the vote here?
After payday, the employees hold the money.
How often does it happen?
Every two weeks (federal pay periods); budgets yearly.
Where the records come from
Federal data is the same for everyone. When you pick a state, the state and local rows are the places to look for your state. "Have now" means PSI Sci already collects it; "Planned" means we list the source but do not collect it yet.
| Level | Source | Format | How often | On PSI Sci |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | USAspending object class 10 (personnel compensation) by agency | API | quarterly | Planned |
| Federal | OPM FedScope / federal workforce data | bulk | quarterly | Planned |
| State | State payroll / salary databases (example: the Texas one) | bulk | yearly | Planned |
| County | County budget personnel lines; county payroll | yearly | Planned | |
| City | City budget personnel lines; city payroll | yearly | Planned | |
| District | (wages are not split by district) | - | - | Not used |
| ZIP | (wages are not split by ZIP) | - | - | Not used |
See these sources as searchable records (rendered live).
See it on PSI Sci now
Variable names
| Variable | Federal | State | County | City | District | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
gov_wage_outlay | fed_gov_wage_outlay | st_gov_wage_outlay | cnty_gov_wage_outlay | cty_gov_wage_outlay | dist_gov_wage_outlay | zip_gov_wage_outlay |
object_class_personnel | fed_object_class_personnel | st_object_class_personnel | cnty_object_class_personnel | cty_object_class_personnel | dist_object_class_personnel | zip_object_class_personnel |
employee_count | fed_employee_count | st_employee_count | cnty_employee_count | cty_employee_count | dist_employee_count | zip_employee_count |
pay_plan | fed_pay_plan | st_pay_plan | cnty_pay_plan | cty_pay_plan | dist_pay_plan | zip_pay_plan |
IDs (like bioguide_id, bill_id, piid, zcta) have no prefix because they already say what they point to.