The US budget ran a $39 billion deficit in January 2023

The US federal government’s budget deficit was $39 billion in January as revenues fell and spending increased.

The US Treasury Department released its budget balance report for January. Accordingly, in January of the fiscal year 2023, which started on October 1, 2022 and will end on September 30, 2023, the budget deficit of the federal government was calculated as $39 billion.

The federal government had a budget surplus of $119 billion in the same month of last year. Thus, there was a decrease of 157 billion dollars in the budget balance compared to the same month of the previous year. In this period, the market expectation regarding the budget balance was that the budget would run a deficit of 63 billion dollars.

While the government’s revenues decreased by about 4 percent in January compared to the same month of the previous year, it decreased to 447 billion dollars, while its expenditures increased by 40 percent to 486 billion dollars.

As of January, the fourth month of the 2023 fiscal year, the country’s total budget deficit amounted to 460 billion dollars with an increase of approximately 78 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. The said deficit was realized at the level of 259 billion dollars in the same period of last year.

While spending in the first four months of the fiscal year increased by 9 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, to $ 1.9 trillion, revenues decreased by approximately 3 percent to $ 1.5 trillion.

The budget deficit of the USA decreased by 50 percent to 1.4 trillion dollars in the 2022 fiscal year due to the decrease in spending on the Covid-19 outbreak.

Source of information ; https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-posts-39-billion-deficit-january-revenues-fall-outlays-jump-2023-02-10/