HHS federal obligations in California (agency 075)

What the HHS–California join is

This page exists because two USAspending dimensions meet: awarding agency 075, labeled Department of Health and Human Services, and place-of-performance state CA. The headline $926,524,907,440 is the sum of obligations on awards that carry both tags. It is not HHS’s worldwide total, not California’s entire federal inflow, and not a claim that every dollar was spent inside a California ZIP code on the day it was obligated. It is a filter on a public awards table.

The 29,109 award count is equally specific. A small number of large awards can dominate a dollar total even when the row count looks modest. Dividing $926,524,907,440 by 29,109 produces about $31,829,500 per award on average. That average hides the mix of contracts, grants, and other instruments in the underlying file. The join does not rank California against other states, and it does not explain why a particular vendor or grantee sits in the extract.

Open Department of Health and Human Services in California for the filtered table. Open California federal spending for all agencies in the state. Open Department of Health and Human Services for agency 075 without a state filter. All spending ties lists other agency–state pairs.

Agency 075 as the awarding side

USAspending identifies this awarding agency as Department of Health and Human Services under code 075. That code is part of the pair. Readers comparing this page with the agency-wide HHS profile should treat 075 as the filter that produced $926,524,907,440 in California, not as a synonym for every HHS account. Medicare, Medicaid, and research folklore are reasons someone opens this join; they are not packet program codes.

The agency page for 075 aggregates that department’s awards without requiring California geography. The California page aggregates all awarding agencies with CA place of performance. Only the overlay at /states/ca/agencies/075/ applies both filters at once, which is why the tie page cites 29,109 awards rather than either parent table’s full inventory.

Place of performance in California

California on this join means USAspending’s place-of-performance state, not the location of a headquarters building and not the recipient’s mailing address. Awards can list CA as the place of performance while work, subcontracting, or later modifications occur elsewhere. Conversely, HHS activity that USAspending codes to Nevada, Arizona, or another state will not appear in this $926,524,907,440 total even if the policy shop sits in California.

Because California concentrates large health systems and research campuses, CA place-of-performance tags are common for HHS awards. That concentration is a coding fact, not evidence that California residents received $926.5 billion in services. The California federal spending hub shows how agency 075 sits beside other awarding agencies in the same geography.

Obligations, not outlays

USAspending’s obligation field records the amount the government has committed on an award. Outlays — money actually disbursed — can lag, split across fiscal years, or never fully match the obligation if an award is de-obligated. This page does not contain an outlay total, a fiscal-year split, or a modification history; those would be additional columns. Citing $926,524,907,440 as “spent in California” would over-read the field.

Award count 29,109 is a count of award records in the aggregate, not a count of unique vendors and not a count of payments. One award can cover multiple years of activity. Readers who need transaction-level detail should use the state–agency overlay, which is the live table behind this narrative.

What this pair does not prove

A large HHS total in California does not mean the agency caused California economic growth, and it does not mean other agencies are smaller in some policy sense. Correlation between a large state and health-award dollars is expected; it is not a finding about effectiveness, waste, or coverage. The join also does not connect these obligations to campaign contributions or to any other dataset.

Use the related pages to keep the two sides separate: Department of Health and Human Services in California for the filtered table, California federal spending for all agencies in CA, Department of Health and Human Services for agency 075 without a state filter, and All spending ties for other agency–state pairs. $926,524,907,440 stays an obligation aggregate.

Questions

How much has HHS obligated in California?

USAspending.gov records $926,524,907,440 in obligations for awarding agency 075 (Department of Health and Human Services) with place of performance in California. That sum covers 29,109 awards. It is an obligation total, not an outlay total, and it is limited to this agency code and geography pair.

Does $926.5 billion mean HHS spent that much in California?

No. The figure is obligations — legal commitments — on awards tagged to agency 075 and California place of performance. Outlays can differ. Place of performance is a USAspending geography field, not proof that every dollar was disbursed to California vendors or residents.

Why does this page use agency code 075?

The underlying aggregate keys awards by awarding agency code. This join uses 075, labeled Department of Health and Human Services, and 29,109 awards. The code is the filter that produced $926,524,907,440 in California, not an alias for every HHS account.

Is this HHS’s entire budget?

No. The $926,524,907,440 total is only the intersection of agency 075 and California place of performance. Awards the same agency codes to other states, and awards other agencies code to California, sit on their own pages. Original filings remain on the source sites.