That makes an agreed-upon understanding of budgetary facts a challenge. So USAFacts, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civic organization, launched a simple and easily interpretable interactive chart that makes sense of all the dollars and cents that make up the federal government’s revenue and spending in 2024. It’s the winner of a 2025 Innovation by Design Award in data design.
By navigating through the in-browser Sankey chart, a type of flow diagram that shows amounts at different stages, users can explore how congressional decisions on the government’s revenue (appears in blue) and spending (pink) affect programs like income taxes, Medicare, Social Security, defense, and foreign affairs. Clicking on any category unfurls even more subprograms. This data-driven chart’s legibility and ease of understanding is a feat of information design with an ambitious goal: to ground public debate in truth.
To create the one graphic, the USAFacts team pulled data from two main sources: the budget of the U.S. government from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and monthly treasury statements from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. But that wasn’t the biggest challenge.
“The hard part wasn’t so much in consolidating several different data sources, but in categorizing line items in the government’s budget by function so that they were easier to understand,” says USAFacts data visualization engineer Amber Thomas.
“In an information environment filled with misinformation and disinformation, it’s important that the American people have a reliable, trustworthy source when it comes to knowing how American taxpayer money is spent,” explains USAFacts communications director Jessica Piha. “Getting this information directly from the source and putting it into an easily accessible chart is the kind of transparency that the American people deserve.”
It also seems to be something Americans crave: Since launching in January 2025, the Sankey has been viewed over 250,000 times; a companion article has more than 200,000 views; and simpler versions of the chart, called “agency explainers,” have been viewed 275,000 times. It’s unlikely those numbers will stagnate. Economic news is more volatile than ever—and USAFacts plans to keep the chart as up-to-date as possible.