This week, the IRS released the 2011 edition of its Data Book. Thank you and congratulations to the IRS on being so quick to release 2011 numbers. As a result, NPP has updated the following Federal Priorities dataset:

• Federal Tax Collection: updated through 2011

We've updated two of our indicators to reflect the latest available published data:

• Medicare Enrollment: updated through 2010
• High School Dropouts: updated through the 2008-2009 school year

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

For the past ten weeks, the Federal Priorities Database team has been publishing a series called Data Wednesday over on NPP's main blog. If you're new to the database and are looking for some how-to information, look no further. The entire series is archived here.

This is what we’ve covered so far. If you have ideas for future Data Wednesday entries, let us know.

1. Searching the Database
2. Interpreting the Map
3. Time Traveling on the Map
4. Adjusting for Inflation
5. Table View
6. Downloading Data
7. County Data
8. Linking to Search Results
9. Federal Money in the States
10. Embedding Search Results

As the 2012 presidential election moves forward and another federal budget cycle begins, National Priorities Project offers a look at how federal dollars are currently spent in order to help voters decide how future tax dollars should be allocated.

NPP’s Federal Priorities Database shows how much individuals and businesses in every state pay in federal taxes and how much they receive in direct federal assistance.  The Federal Tax Collection and Federal Aid to Individuals data provide an overview of taxes ...

Earlier this week, NPP released a short publication about the role of federal money in Iowa and New Hampshire: Federal Money Keeps Iowa, New Hampshire Afloat. Sam and Mattea, the authors, conclude that in 2010 Iowa residents collected more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes.

Sam and Mattea used three datasets from the Federal Priorities Database to reach this conclusion:

• Federal Aid to Individuals: total amount of money paid by the U.S. government directly to or on behalf of individuals
• Federal Tax Collection (Individual): federal taxes paid by individuals
• Population: used to calculate per-person amounts

So if ...

Our new-ish General Budget category now has its second dataset:

• Federal Aid to Individuals: total federal dollars spent directly on or on behalf of individuals.

Three months ago, National Priorities Project officially launched the second version of the Federal Priorities Database. Since then, we’ve committed to making incremental improvements: new data, better usability, and maybe even a bug fix or two.

We’re seeking to improve even more by assessing the usefulness of our datasets. There are some we’d like to research further and some that add noise, distracting from the real gems. So as 2011 winds down, we’re un-publishing the following to pave the way for useful additions in 2012:

• 21st Century Community Learning Centers
• Coal Mine Workers’ Compensation
• Community Health ...

This morning, the New York Times Economix blog published a piece by Nancy Folbre arguing that the U.S.'s current welfare program (i.e., Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, aka TANF) is an inadequate safety net during periods of long-term unemployment.

I'm not an economist, but I do have some data that the economists among you could use to further explore Ms. Folbre's piece. I'm talking about NPP's Federal Priorities Database, which not only has the children in poverty and unemployment measures she uses, but has localized versions of them AND federal TANF dollars received ...

We've added a new category to the database, General Budget, and loaded its first dataset.

• Federal Tax Collection: gross federal tax collections by state (split out by total taxes collected, business taxes collected, and individual taxes collected.

We’re happy to announce that our expenditure datasets now include per capita numbers. In other words, you can see the amount of money spent for each person who lives in a state or county.

Why is this important? Below is a map of federal food stamp spending in FY 2010. Using the map’s legend, you can quickly see that California received the most money for this program, followed by Texas, New York, and Florida.

And here’s a map of FY 2010 State Children’s Insurance Program (CHIP) spending. Again, California and Texas got the most funding.

In ...