By David Lawder
(Reuters) – The U.S. government posted an $89 billion budget deficit during June, roughly half the prior year’s gap, as pandemic-related outlays fell and revenues edged higher, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.
The June deficit compared with a $174 billion deficit for June 2021. Outlays for the month fell 12% to $550 billion, while receipts grew 3% to $461 billion, a new June record.
For the first nine months of the 2022 fiscal year ending Sept. 30, the deficit fell 77% to $515 billion from $2.238 trillion in the same period of fiscal 2021, with the prior-year figure bloated by COVID-19 aid payments and benefits associated with President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act.
The drop in the nine-month deficit was a record decline for that period, a Treasury official said.
Year-to-date receipts of $3.835 trillion – up 26% from the comparable period in the prior year – also marked a record, while outlays fell 18% to $4.35 trillion.
Much of the decline in outlays was due to the wind-down of pandemic-related spending on extended unemployment aid, assistance to small businesses and other programs.
Tax collections have grown over the past year from individuals, on a withheld and nonwithheld basis, and corporations as the result of increased economic activity, the Treasury said.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Paul Simao)
