Can you provide the actual yearly deficit amounts for the past 15 years?
Executive summary
A year-by-year accounting of U.S. federal budget deficits for the last 15 fiscal years (FY2010–FY2024) is provided below using official historical deficit series compiled by federal data repositories and budget analysts; the Treasury/Federal Reserve/CBO dataset underlies these figures (FRED/Treasury/CBO) [1] [2] [3]. Where recent single-year totals have been summarized by independent trackers, those figures are noted and sources identified [4].
1. The raw numbers — deficits, FY2010 through FY2024
FY2010: $1,294 billion; FY2011: $1,300 billion; FY2012: $1,087 billion; FY2013: $680 billion; FY2014: $485 billion; FY2015: $438 billion; FY2016: $587 billion; FY2017: $665 billion; FY2018: $779 billion; FY2019: $984 billion; FY2020: $3,132 billion; FY2021: $2,776 billion; FY2022: $1,375 billion; FY2023: $1,680 billion; FY2024: $1,830 billion — these fiscal-year totals are drawn from the federal surplus/deficit historical series maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) and underlying Treasury/O.M.B. tables, and recent year summaries compiled by budget trackers such as USAFacts [1] [5] [4].
2. Why those numbers move so much — short explanation of drivers
The spike in FY2020 and FY2021 reflects pandemic-related emergency spending and revenue shortfalls tied to COVID-era policy and economic contraction, producing deficits well above historic norms [6] [7], while the decline in FY2022 reflected both recovering receipts and the phasing down of some emergency outlays [7]; later-year increases partly reflect policy choices, economic conditions, and the normal volatility of receipts and outlays that the Treasury and CBO monitor [2] [3].
3. Sources and their implicit agendas — where these numbers come from and why it matters
The underlying annual deficit series comes from official federal publications—Treasury monthly statements and OMB/Treasury historical tables—then republished and graphed by data aggregators like FRED and independent analysts [1] [3] [5]; policy groups such as the Bipartisan Policy Center maintain trackers that emphasize longer-term fiscal sustainability, which can affect how they frame short-term changes [8], while media and private sites sometimes present slightly different headline totals depending on whether they use “on-budget,” “off-budget,” or cash-versus-accrual conventions [5] [9].
4. Caveats and limitations in public reporting
Different authoritative sources may report slightly different totals for a fiscal year depending on timing (monthly Treasury updates), whether figures are reported on a unified on-/off-budget basis, and revisions to receipts/outlays; the definitive rolling series is the historical tables and Treasury/FRED time series, and readers should consult those primary datasets for exact month-to-month revisions [1] [3] [5]. If a deeper audit of line-item changes or intrayear revisions is required, the Congressional Budget Office and Treasury provide the granular tables and narrative explanations [2] [3].
5. Bottom line for readers seeking the canonical list
The concise FY2010–FY2024 deficit list above reflects the consensus historical series as published by federal data agencies and republished by major budget data services; for the official, downloadable year-by-year table and machine-readable time series, refer to the Treasury’s Fiscal Data “national deficit” page and the FRED “Federal Surplus or Deficit” series, and consult CBO for projections and methodological notes [3] [1] [2].