San Francisco General Fund Spending Up 50 Percent

By: Dakin Sloss

According to the data that we gathered at California Common Sense, San Francisco’s government per capita spending has increased significantly (even adjusting for inflation) in the last two decades.

In 1991, city government general fund spending per San Francisco resident was just over $3,000, but that number has increased 50 percent to over $4,500 in 2010 (even adjusting for inflation). Most of that growth in the size of San Francisco government occurred during the booming 1990s, but over the last decade spending has remained fairly flat (other than a temporary decrease after the bust of the dot-com bubble).

It seems reasonable that San Francisco government spent more as the economy expanded rapidly in the 1990s, but do you think that San Francisco services have become sufficiently better in the last 20 years to justify the increase in cost?

Stay tuned as we share a series of data visualizations on San Francisco city government created by California Common Sense.