Are Federal Infrastructure Dollars Meeting Your Community’s Needs?

Last updated March 13, 2025

In recent years, the federal government has prioritized funding large-scale investments in infrastructure through major spending laws. This new wave of spending has sought to expand access to clean energy, broadband, transit, affordable homes, and more.

In the past, federal investments in infrastructure left some communities behind. All this new spending raises new questions. First, where are federal infrastructure dollars being spent? And second, are those dollars reaching the communities that most need that funding?

Data highlights

Transit funding targets places with greater bus and train ridership—but low-income areas may receive less funding than they deserve.

Broadband programs support areas with greater internet needs, particularly native communities.

Housing funds disproportionately go to areas with higher housing cost burdens but may underfund areas with poor housing quality.

Where the Federal Government Has Distributed Infrastructure Funds

We analyzed dozens of federal funding initiatives to determine how much federal infrastructure money communities are receiving and if that funding is meeting community needs. This dataset includes programs enacted through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act, and other federal laws, but it is not exhaustive. Using the search bar below, explore how and where federal dollars are targeting the infrastructure needs of communities nationwide.

Search for federal infrastructure programs and where they distributed funds

Not sure where to start?

Try searching for a state, county, or urban area (Illinois, Cook County, or Chicago, for example) to see if it receives funding proportional to its needs. Or try searching for an infrastructure category (like Ports and waterways) or a specific program (such as the Bridge Investment Program) to see if it distributes funds in a way that advances racial and economic equity.

Some of these projects are competitively funded, meaning federal officials review applications from prospective grantees, mostly at the state and local levels, then choose where to direct money. Others are formula funded, meaning states and localities distribute a pot of money allocated to them through a formula established by Congress or other federal agencies. For more information on how competitive and formula funding mechanisms work, see our User Guide.

About

Update: This tool was updated on March 13, 2025 to include data from fiscal year 2023, additional federal infrastructure programs, and new funding distribution measures. The title was also changed to "Are Federal Infrastructure Funds Meeting Your Community’s Needs" to make it clear that the tool tracks funding by a variety of characteristics, including geography, race, income level, and indicators of local need. This tool was originally named "Is Federal Infrastructure Spending Advancing Racial and Economic Equity?”

For this tool, we analyzed 85 grant programs funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 9 grant programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, 2 programs funded by annual appropriations to the Department of Transportation, and 14 housing programs that use annual HUD appropriations. The data presented here are limited to fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023. We collected program data from federal departmental announcements and project fact sheets. Demographic and need indicator data are sourced from approximately two dozen publicly available sources, including the 2016–20 American Community Survey five-year estimates from the US Census Bureau and data produced by other federal agencies.

To learn more about how to use this tool, see our user guide. To review the complete list of data sources and methods used in this work, see our full report.

Project Credits

This data tool was funded by a grant from the Melville Charitable Trust as part of the Partnership for Equitable and Resilient Communities Initiative. We are grateful to them and to all our funders, who make it possible for Urban to advance its mission. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders. Funders do not determine research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. More information on our funding principles is available here. Read our terms of service here.

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