Tracking COVID-19 Relief Spending for Greater Transparency
The COVID-19 Relief Spending Tracker increases the transparency of government spending in nearly $3 trillion spent in COVID-19 relief efforts.
Oversight practitioners, subject matter experts, analysts, and the general public can explore a robust database of relief programs and community indicators.
Overlaying this data helps users evaluate the effectiveness of relief programs while also identifying instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.
POGO, a nonpartisan independent watchdog with 40 years of experience conducting government oversight, funded the project which was developed by RS21 and FuseLab Creative.
Integrating Spending Data + Community Indicators
The tracker includes spending data for $1.6 trillion dollars and 15 million transactions. It is uniquely suited to reveal spending patterns by overlaying unemployment, population and minority percentages with overall spending data.
Interactive Data Visualization
An interactive map and additional table views enable users to explore and overlay various datasets—such as community demographics compared to spending—to provide context to specific inquiries.
Industry Insights
To understand which industries received government aid, users can research specific industries and sectors.
Data is shown at a national scale with options to drill down to state and local levels. An option to download a .csv file enables users to explore specific transactions offline.
Driving Results
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SEAN MOULTON, POGO Senior Analyst
“You can look at all kinds of spending grants contracts that are going on in relation to this. And you can search it for your zip code or your state or your county, and you can look at it on maps, along with data on demographics, percent minority population or unemployment information for your region and give you some context as to whether or not you think the spending patterns that we’re seeing make sense, relative to other points of data for the communities.”
Interview from Federal News Network
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Digging Into the Data
POGO’s COVID-19 relief spending mapping tool illustrates where the money went. The tracker features maps, scatterplots, and tables that enable analysts to sift through available data and investigate how funds were spent.
Read an analysis from Project On Government Oversight
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Understanding the Context of COVID-19 Relief Spending
In addition to assembling spending data in one place, allowing detailed search and rich filters to explore relief spending, the tool also includes data on unemployment, population size, and racial demographics. These auxiliary datasets provide a more nuanced understanding of where the money went.