Tennessee close to the middle in terms of its dependence on federal funding
Kentucky ranks #2, only behind Alaska. Four other Southeastern states place in the top 10.
Where do you think the Volunteer State might rank in terms of its dependence on federal funding?
WalletHub, the personal financial website, has the answer, and it might surprise you relative to neighboring states. Tennessee ranks #21 overall, with the dependency of state residents ranked #26 while state government is a little higher in terms of dependency at #22.
Not surprising is Alaska which ranks first, but at least somewhat startling to us was our neighbors to the north – Kentucky to be exact – which ranked #2 overall.
According to WalletHub’s analysis, the Bluegrass State is the second-most federally dependent state, in large part because it receives a huge amount of federal funding compared to the taxes that residents pay. For every $1 paid in taxes, Kentucky gets $3.35 in federal funding. Around half of the other states get less than $1 in federal funding for every tax dollar.
Federal funding makes up a large share of Kentucky’s revenue as well, at over 46 percent, among the highest in the country. Kentucky doesn’t have quite as many federal jobs as other states, though. Around 1.8 percent of the state’s residents are employed by the federal government, which puts Kentucky around the middle of the 50 states for that particular metric.
How do other Southeastern states rank? Four are in the top 10 in addition to Kentucky. Mississippi is #4, South Carolina ranks #5, Louisiana in #7, and Alabama places #10.
The full study can be found here.
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