Data note
Where federal contract obligations are moving
Compare eleven sector groupings across two full-year windows, then separate public commitments from business outcomes.
Data snapshot collected Oct 15, 2026. Each chart shows its observation period.
Compare two complete windows
In the sector groupings tracked here, Basic Materials has the largest dollar increase in federal contract obligations between the two 12-month windows: $3.3B to $7.0B, a change of $3.6B (+108.7%). The latest window runs October 2025–September 2026; the previous one runs October 2024–September 2025.
The largest dollar decrease is in Industrials: −$26.9B. Looking at both directions makes the comparison more useful than selecting a favorable percentage alone.
October 2026 is excluded because it is incomplete. The amounts are nominal dollars, without inflation adjustment. Full months can still be revised as records are corrected.
All eleven tracked sector groupings
These are explicit NAICS-code selections, not the entire federal budget or complete investment-sector coverage. Categories should not be added together as if they were an audited partition of spending.
| Sector | 2025 | 2026 | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Materials | $3.3B | $7.0B | $3.6B | +108.7% |
| Financial Services | $48.4B | $51.9B | $3.5B | +7.2% |
| Energy | $8.3B | $9.2B | $896.5M | +10.7% |
| Real Estate | $506.3M | $627.0M | $120.7M | +23.8% |
| Healthcare | $35.2B | $35.2B | −$6.4M | −0.0% |
| Consumer Cyclical | $7.6B | $7.3B | −$350.3M | −4.6% |
| Utilities | $3.2B | $2.6B | −$641.1M | −19.9% |
| Consumer Defensive | $7.5B | $6.7B | −$811.5M | −10.8% |
| Communication Services | $5.6B | $4.5B | −$1.1B | −19.8% |
| Technology | $117.3B | $113.9B | −$3.4B | −2.9% |
| Industrials | $251.3B | $224.5B | −$26.9B | −10.7% |
Monthly commitments can be uneven
Data & source
Original series ↗. Observation dates are shown; values may be revised.
| Date | USD billions |
|---|---|
| 2024-10-01 | 0.366 |
| 2024-11-01 | 0.320 |
| 2024-12-01 | 0.192 |
| 2025-01-01 | 0.368 |
| 2025-02-01 | 0.222 |
| 2025-03-01 | 0.382 |
| 2025-04-01 | 0.389 |
| 2025-05-01 | 0.256 |
| 2025-06-01 | 0.134 |
| 2025-07-01 | 0.104 |
| 2025-08-01 | 0.210 |
| 2025-09-01 | 0.407 |
| 2025-10-01 | 0.280 |
| 2025-11-01 | 0.099 |
| 2025-12-01 | 0.332 |
| 2026-01-01 | 0.308 |
| 2026-02-01 | 0.388 |
| 2026-03-01 | 1.056 |
| 2026-04-01 | 1.128 |
| 2026-05-01 | 0.432 |
| 2026-06-01 | 0.646 |
| 2026-07-01 | 1.501 |
| 2026-08-01 | 0.510 |
| 2026-09-01 | 0.311 |
One large award or a funding adjustment can move a monthly total. A rolling-year comparison reduces some month-to-month noise, but it does not identify the recipients or explain why the change happened.
From a public commitment to a business opportunity
An obligation commits the government to spend under an agreement. Cash outlays, delivery and a company recognizing revenue are later or separate events. This ledger covers contract obligations; grants, loans and tax credits are outside this chart.
The next questions are practical: which agency and program, which recipient, what work is required, and when could a supplier actually deliver? A sector total cannot answer those questions or establish that a particular stock benefits.
Funding discovery and execution are separate problems. Grant workflows need a grant-specific source rather than treating these contract totals as grant availability.
Policy context and sources
Our source ledger also contains enacted laws, federal rules and executive orders. The relevant distinction is status: a proposal, an enacted law, a published rule and an effective rule can have different consequences and dates. Counts of documents do not measure their economic effect.
USAspending data guide ↗ · Spending API ↗ · Congress.gov ↗ · Federal Register ↗.
Method: sum each sector’s 12 monthly observations in each full window, subtract the prior window, and divide by a positive prior total for percentage change. Revisions and the chosen industry codes limit comparability.