Federal Contract Spending Feed Screensaver
The Federal Contract Spending Feed screensaver ranks real recent US federal contract awards by dollar amount. It is free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
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Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Federal Contract Spending Feed screensaver works
The saver reads real recent contract awards from USAspending.gov's own public API.
Awards are ranked by their real dollar amount, highest first.
The pipeline refreshes the board on its own schedule.
No key is required for this key-less public endpoint.
Reading federal contract awards
USAspending.gov is the official public source for federal spending data in the United States. It is maintained by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and the DATA Act of 2014 expanded the site and set common data standards so that contract, grant and loan spending could be compared and searched. This saver draws from the contracts portion, listing recent awards ranked by dollar amount, with the recipient name and the awarding agency.
A contract award amount is not the same as money paid. The federal accounting distinction is between obligations, the amounts the government has legally committed, and outlays, the payments actually made. Contracts can also be modified after they are signed, which raises or lowers the recorded value, so a figure describes a commitment at one moment rather than a final cost.
Recipient names appear as registered, often as a parent or subsidiary, so one corporate group can show under several names. A big number shows scale of commitment, not value for money or any wrongdoing. The data also depends on agencies reporting it: the Government Accountability Office has identified completeness gaps in the site’s reporting, so a missing award does not prove it was never made.
A worked example
A real contract awarded to a real recipient for a real dollar amount sits at the top of the board, exactly matching USAspending.gov's own record.
Settings & tips
- Recipients, agencies and amounts are real, published federal spending records.
- Accent recolours the ranking bars.
- Coverage reflects real contracts signed in the recent reporting window.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real spending data?
- Yes — real federal contract awards from USAspending.gov's own API.
- Is a key needed?
- No. USAspending.gov's award search API is fully key-less.
- Is this all government spending?
- No — it covers real contract awards specifically, not every spending category.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- Is the amount the same as the money actually spent?
- No. Federal accounting separates obligations, which are amounts the government has committed, from outlays, which are payments actually made. Contract values can also change through later modifications.
- Why might one company appear under multiple names?
- Recipients are listed under the entity that received the award, which can be a subsidiary or division of a larger group.
- Are grants included?
- This feed focuses on contract awards. USAspending.gov also covers grants, loans and other financial assistance, but those are separate from the contracts shown here.