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COVID-19 & Health Economy Standard of Living Population Budget Education Crime & Justice Environment & Energy Infrastructure Immigration Defense Federal Government Actions

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COVID-19 & Health As of April 27, 32 million Americans, or 10% of the population, had tested positive for COVID-19. As of April 27, over half a million Americans had died from COVID-19. That's 0.2% of the population. As of April 27, 97 million Americans had been fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Personal healthcare spending reached $3.2 trillion in 2019, or $9,770 per capita. The percentage of uninsured Americans decreased to 8% in 2019, near the 2017 low of 7.9%. Preliminary data shows that 3.4 million people died in 2020, 20% more than in 2019, with the top three causes — heart disease, cancer, and COVID-19 — accounting for half of deaths. State and local governments are primarily responsible for public health, spending $96 billion on it in 2018 — excluding federal grants.

Economy GDP decreased 3.5% in 2020, the lowest growth rate since 1946. The average annual unemployment rate in 2020 was 8.1%, lower than the annual averages during the Great Recession in 2009 (9.3%), 2010 (9.6%), and 2011 (8.9%). Nearly 25 million Americans were on unemployment insurance in May, the highest point during the pandemic. The economy lost 9.4 million jobs in 2020, a 6.2% decrease from 2019. That’s larger than the 3.7% drop from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. At the end of 2020, 74% of small businesses reported experiencing negative effects from COVID-19, and 73% of small businesses reported receiving a Paycheck Protection Program loan. Prior to the pandemic, median wages increased 1.2% from 2018 to 2019. The US imported $679 billion more in goods and services than it exported in 2020, an 18% increase in the trade deficit from 2019.

Standard of Living In December, 38% of all households — 90 million nationwide — reported difficulty paying for usual expenses. Nine and a half percent of US adults faced housing insecurity in December. Half of households lost employment income during the pandemic. However, because of increased government support like unemployment insurance and other aid, personal income rose in aggregate nationwide in 2020. Occupations with median wages below the national median lost 8% of their jobs in 2020. Occupations above the median wage lost 3%. Before the pandemic, middle-class families (the middle 20% of income earners) averaged $49,000 in market income from sources including wages, investments, and retirement. Prior to the pandemic, the poverty rate decreased from 15% in 2010 to 10.5% in 2019, the lowest it had been since 1980. The wealth of the middle 20% of income earners has grown 66% since 1990.

Population In 2020, 331 million people lived in the United States. The population grew by 1.2 million from 2019 to 2020, with 41% of growth from immigration. According to preliminary data, the 2020 death rate was the highest since 1943. The population is getting older. More people are living alone. The absolute number of non-Hispanic white people has decreased every year since 2017.

Budget The federal government collected $3.5 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2020 — or $10,457 per person. The federal government spent $6.6 trillion in fiscal year 2020 — or $19,962 per person. The federal government made $2.6 trillion in funds available to respond to COVID-19 and spent $1.6 trillion of that in fiscal year 2020. Federal revenue decreased 3% in fiscal year 2020. Federal spending grew 45% in fiscal year 2020. The nation spent 91% more than it collected in revenue, creating a $3.1 trillion deficit in fiscal year 2020.

Education In December, over half of people with K-12 students reported their kids spent less time learning compared to before the pandemic. About 59 million adults lived with someone who planned to attend college in fall 2020, with over a third of them reporting that the student ultimately canceled their plans. Between 2000 and 2017, K-12 spending per public school student increased 24% to $12,794. Two-thirds of eighth graders are not proficient in math and reading. The average college tuition was $23,902 in 2016, an increase of over 80% since 1993 (adjusting for inflation). Wages for people with a bachelor’s degree have increased 5% since 2000. Eighty-five percent of students graduate from high school, and 70% of recent high school graduates enroll in college within a year of graduating from high school. More than a third of the overall adult population has a bachelor’s degree or higher, but only 25% of Black Americans and 19% of Hispanic Americans do.

Crime & Justice Over 6.4 million Americans were in prison, jail, or under probation or parole when counted in 2018, though an estimated 10.7 million people were admitted to jail throughout the year. The total prison population decreased 11% between the 2009 peak and 2019, with decreases in federal, California, and New York state prison populations accounting for 45% of the decline. Fifty-seven percent of the decline in prison population between 2009 and 2018 was due to fewer prisoners whose most serious offense was a drug crime. Arrests have decreased every year since 2006. Reported property and violent crime rates were down 50% in 2019 compared to their 1991 peaks. The number of police officers per capita fell 9% between its 2008 peak and 2019. Firearm deaths increased 18% from 2014 to 2018, accounting for 1.4% of all deaths in that time.

Environment & Energy 2020 was the second-warmest year on record. Last year, there were 22 natural disasters that cost over $1 billion each, six more than any year recorded. 2020 was the second-worst year for wildfires on recent record, with over 10 million acres burned. US energy production fell by 5% in 2020. Energy consumption per person fell 7.6% in 2020, the greatest decrease in recorded data. Fossil fuels account for 79% of US energy consumption. The share of energy consumption from nuclear and renewable sources has doubled since 1980 to 21% in 2020. In 2019, the US became a net exporter of energy for the first time since 1952. The US emits fewer greenhouse gases per person than in 1990, but still emits 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per person. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were 11% lower in 2020 than 2019, partly due to pandemic travel restrictions.

Infrastructure Nearly 40% of 2020 federal transportation spending was for air transportation, driven in part by stimulus spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most infrastructure spending comes directly from state and local governments, which spent $169 billion on projects in 2018, excluding federal transfers. Public transit ridership was down 47% from 2019 to 2020. Car travel was down 13% from 2019 to 2020. Bridges are improving. Urban roads and interstates are improving. Train infrastructure is degrading.

Immigration Excluding tourism and unauthorized arrivals, most people who come to the US on visas or green cards are temporary workers, students, or coming to be with their families. The number of non-tourist visas granted and refugees and asylees admitted rose from 2018 to 2019. In 2018, the federal government estimated there were 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants in the country. Border apprehensions fell by more than half from 2019 to 2020. Immigration officials removed 360,000 people from the US in 2019. The US is again increasingly a nation of immigrants.

Defense Defense spending increased in 2020 but was 11% lower than its 2010 peak. The military is the largest it has been since 2012 but is still smaller than it was in 1980. The US has fewer troops abroad, particularly in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Nearly 84,000 National Guard soldiers were on duty on June 2, equal to half the number of active-duty troops abroad and one-fifth of available National Guard members. Foreign aid (adjusted for inflation) has declined each year since 2015, and makes up less than 1% of the federal budget. Veterans have higher levels of employment, lower rates of poverty, and higher rates of disability than the overall population.

Federal Government Actions There were 24 actions about health. There were 33 actions about the economy and jobs. There were 18 actions about standard of living. There was one action on population. There were 16 actions on the budget. There were two actions on education. There were 20 actions on crime and justice. There were 46 actions on land, energy, and the environment. There were nine actions on infrastructure. There were six actions on immigration. There were 82 actions on defense. There were 76 other kinds of actions.

Home / Reports / 2021 State of the Union / Federal Government Actions

Federal Government Actions

What did the federal government do last year?

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The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government act together to shape policy and its implementation. To give a glimpse into what federal government does, this section summarizes a subset of that work completed in 2020 by the executive and legislative branches. Specifically, it shows bills that became public law, executive orders and presidential memoranda, and rulemaking by executive agencies classified as significant by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Congress passed 149 bills into law.

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The CARES Act, a $2 trillion coronavirus relief package passed in March 2020, had 369 House cosponsors — more than any other bill. The only other bills to receive more than 300 sponsors were ceremonial or historical, like legislation to mint honorary coins for Purple Heart recipients and expand educational programming at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

President Donald Trump signed 127 executive orders and presidential memoranda.

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That reflects all executive orders, plus presidential memoranda — another, similar form of official directive often discussed interchangeably — that the administration chose to publish in the Federal Register. It excludes one order that President Trump issued, revoked, and replaced in the same month.

Agencies implemented 57 significant rule changes.

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This does not include 22 rules that were corrections or amendments to, or notifications about, other significant rules passed in the same year. It does count one rule finalizing certain firearms and munition deregulation, though it was later blocked by court order.

What did these 333 federal government actions do?

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Federal Government Actions

There were 24 actions about health.

These included nine executive orders and memoranda specifically fighting the COVID-19 pandemic — increasing production of masks and ventilators, reducing mask and disinfectant hoarding, and implementing a federal vaccine distribution plan. There were also executive orders to reduce pharmaceutical drug prices and increase the quality of rural healthcare.

Other actions affected public health services, like a law designating 988 as the universal telephone number of a national suicide prevention hotline.

Federal Government Actions

There were 33 actions about the economy and jobs.

Among them was an executive order requesting broad business deregulation in response to the economic impact of COVID-19, as well as a bill ratifying the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Other orders affected business support programs like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), employment and occupational safety, and monetary policy like stabilizing the exchange rate of the dollar.

Federal Government Actions

There were 18 actions about standard of living.

Six affected civil rights and accessibility, such as a bill establishing a commission to study the conditions facing Black men and boys, as well as an executive order requesting that social media moderation permitted under section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act not impair free speech.

There was also an executive order extending assistance to renters and requesting the eviction moratorium later implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; another order, categorized under other aid, suspended student loan payments after the expiration of the CARES Act.

Federal Government Actions

There was one action on population.

It was a presidential memorandum requesting that unauthorized immigrants not be counted in the 2020 census for reapportioning representation in Congress. Lower courts found the action unlawful or unconstitutional; the Supreme Court chose not to rule on the issue.

(While not counted in the 333 federal actions listed here, there was also Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’s decision to end the census count on September 30, 2020, a month before planned. After lower courts required the Census Bureau to continue counting until October 31, the Supreme Court intervened to allow it to end early.)

Federal Government Actions

There were 16 actions on the budget.

That included the five stimulus bills passed in Congress, which began with $8.3 billion in emergency funding granted in March, followed by expanded sick leave and unemployment benefits in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act and the CARES Act later that month; a second round of PPP funding for small businesses in April; and the $900 billion package signed into law in December. There were also extensions for expiring programs and three continuing resolutions that prevented a government shutdown until Congress passed the budget for the new fiscal year.

Among the actions on taxes and revenue was the presidential memorandum to defer payroll tax obligations for certain employees through the last four months of the year.

Federal Government Actions

There were two actions on education.

One was a bill addressing school funding. The other was an executive order promoting positive representations of American history over critical ones, especially regarding slavery and the civil rights movement.

That said, when including actions not primarily aimed at education reform, a total of five out of all 333 federal actions affected students — such as the criminalization of unauthorized use of student loan information and the suspension of student loan payments.

Federal Government Actions

There were 20 actions on crime and justice.

Ten were on prisons and sentencing, like a bill that prohibited voter system interference under existing computer fraud and abuse legislation. Six fell under crime prevention, including two bills to minimize violent crime and trafficking on Native American reservations by increasing coordination and mandating data collection on missing persons by gender.

Four affected policing, with bills training police to detect elder abuse, expanding death and disability benefits for officers, and establishing data collection on officer suicides. Amidst protests for racial justice in June, President Trump also signed one executive order requesting the prohibition of chokeholds, the creation of a database on excessive use of force and its consequences, and the usage of social service workers as primary responders for those with mental illnesses.

Federal Government Actions

There were 46 actions on land, energy, and the environment.

Eleven were on energy, including a presidential memorandum encouraging support of fracking and others granting permits for oil and natural gas pipelines operating on federal lands. Eight actions affected pollution, like a rule reducing fuel emissions standards.

Four were bills about Native American reservations, adding 11,760 acres to the reservation of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, officially nullifying an unenforced 1865 treaty that restricted the rights of tribal members in Oregon to leave their reservation, and creating a grant program to support entrepreneurship in Native American communities.

Federal Government Actions

There were nine actions on infrastructure.

Among them were executive orders promoting infrastructure investment in low-income communities and a classical style in federal architecture, memoranda and rules relating to railroads, and a bill about broadband service availability.

Federal Government Actions

There were six actions on immigration.

Four were about arrivals and removals, reducing the cap on refugee admissions for 2021 and imposing more stringent enforcement of H-1B work visa regulations.

(Though not included in the 333 federal actions discussed here, there were also two presidential proclamations — yet another kind of presidential directive — suspending immigration on certain visas.)

Federal Government Actions

There were 82 actions on defense.

Of the 24 about foreign affairs, nine were related to China. These included a bill passing sanctions for human rights abuses against the Uyghur minority, as well as two executive orders about TikTok and one about WeChat.

There were 24 actions managing defense personnel, 21 of which were memoranda from President Trump authorizing and funding the use of the National Guard to combat COVID-19.

Federal Government Actions

There were 76 other kinds of actions.

The majority were ceremonial, like naming post offices in honor of various people. Another 22 concerned matters of general governance, including an executive order making it easier to hire and fire certain career employees. There was also a bill aimed at improving death data to cut down on improper Social Security payments to the deceased, as well as an executive order prohibiting certain types of racial awareness training for federal employees.

Four actions concerned museums and historical preservation, including one executive order creating a memorial statue garden in response to monuments damaged in racial justice demonstrations.

To learn more, look at the full list of actions categorized in this section, including descriptions, dates, source links, and the names and political parties of bill sponsors.

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