Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation
FRD produces an annual report illustrating Defense Department procurement efforts and personnel distribution across all fifty U.S. states and the five principal territories.
Annual Defense Spending by State Report
The Client
The Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (OLDCC), a Field Activity within the Department of Defense (DoD), provides assistance to states and communities as they address the local impacts of changes in Defense priorities; coordinate with military installations and private actors in support of military goals; and enhance readiness and resiliency across the military, civilian, and industrial sectors, and provide support to military families.
The Ask
Each year, the OLDCC (formerly the Office of Economic Adjustment) releases a Defense Spending by State report to illustrate Defense Department procurement efforts and personnel distribution across states and counties in the United States. The report shows details such as total spending figures and major defense vendors in each county and state, as well as information on active duty, reserve, and civilian personnel numbers and payroll in these geographies.
Why FRD?
Data for the Defense Spending by State series come from varied sources, including USAspending.gov and the Defense Manpower Data Center. FRD’s data scientists harmonize and analyze these data, while the team’s graphic designer generates attractive visuals to display the findings in a comprehensive report. FRD also provides data outputs in an easy-to-understand Excel-based format.
The data methodology includes two unique steps that allow the OLDCC report to provide detail not found in other defense spending reports. First, data scientists distinguish between prime and sub awards to determine which vendors—and which geographies—ultimately receive funds from DoD, either through direct contracts or through subcontracts made by prime recipients. Second, these researchers conduct thorough quality assurance on contract data geographic fields to ensure the accuracy of geographic attributions. This quality assurance process leverages data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Postal Service to align ZIP codes to counties and ensure that mismatches between ZIP and county attributions in the USAspending.gov data are rigorously and consistently addressed.
FRD has provided this analysis for OLDCC for seven years, offering methodological enhancements with each iteration of the effort.
The Product
Please see https://oldcc.gov/defense-spending-state-fiscal-year-2023 for the latest Defense Spending by State report, as well as an archive of previous reports.
The Impact
As described by OLDCC in a press release regarding the FY2023 report, “This snapshot provides public and private leaders with a starting place to assess how defense investments across installations and the private sector can be optimized by supporting regional innovation, industrial capability and capacity, supply chain resilience, and cultivating a skilled workforce.”