Grants

The $5,455,743,675,595.86 grant obligation book

Federal grants in this extract carry $5,455,743,675,595.86 in obligations. USAspending.gov places those dollars in the grant award_type_code family: assistance to states, localities, tribes, universities, nonprofits, and other eligible entities for a stated purpose. The government is not buying a good or service on a procurement contract. It is committing assistance under grant and cooperative-agreement codes in the award file. Cooperative agreements sit in that same grant family in this extract; they are not moved into the contract bucket because a federal official stays involved in performance.

An obligation is the amount committed on the award. It is not an outlay. De-obligations, late amendments, and payment timing can make cash leaving the Treasury diverge from $5,455,743,675,595.86. This page does not convert the grant book into a spent-to-date cash figure because the packet has no outlay column. Cite the number as obligations from USAspending.gov.

723,291 awards and why grant volume looks thinner than the dollars

Seven hundred twenty-three thousand two hundred ninety-one grant awards sit under $5,455,743,675,595.86. That is far fewer rows than a procurement file with many small orders, and the average shows it: dividing dollars by awards yields about $7,543,221 per record. That average is a scale check, not a typical state formula grant and not a typical research project. One cooperative agreement can dwarf thousands of small assistance actions.

The 723,291 figure is a record count. It is not a count of unique grantees. A single state agency or university can hold many awards. Amendments can add rows. This packet does not split the 723,291 by CFDA program, awarding agency, or recipient type. Those cuts, if present, live on the Grants awards overlay tables, not in this prose.

Questions

How much are federal grants obligated in USAspending?

USAspending.gov award files indexed on SpendingVault show $5,455,743,675,595.86 in Grants obligations. That sum is an obligation total, not a Treasury outlay total. The same files record 723,291 grant awards. This packet does not name a fiscal-year window, so the dollars are the indexed Grants roll-up as loaded.

How many federal grant awards are in USAspending?

The indexed files count 723,291 Grants awards. That is a record tally, not a count of unique grantees. Dividing $5,455,743,675,595.86 by 723,291 yields about $7,543,221 per record as a scale check, not a typical award size. This packet does not split the count by program or agency.

Are federal grants the same as contracts?

No. USAspending files grants and contracts as separate award_type_code groups. Grants are assistance for a stated purpose. Contracts are procurement of goods or services. The $5,455,743,675,595.86 figure is Grants only and does not include contract obligations. Loan and Direct Payment families are separate as well.

Do grant totals show money already spent?

No. The $5,455,743,675,595.86 headline is obligations — legal commitments on grant awards — not outlays. Recipients may draw funds over time. De-obligations and corrections can move the indexed total. This packet has no outlay column, so this page does not estimate cash paid.