PlainSpending

Standards · How we work

Changelog

A dated record of data corrections, database refreshes, and feature changes to PlainSpending. Every entry here is corroborated by our source history, see our corrections process for how a reported issue becomes an entry.

The record begins in March 2026 and preserves the date and scope of each change. When an update affects figures sourced from USASpending.gov, the Treasury Department's public award-data system, the entry identifies what changed so readers can compare the prior and current treatment.

  1. Accountability

    Public /corrections pathway and identity CiteThis blocks

    Added a typed /corrections page and Cite this page blocks on about, privacy, terms, and contact so readers have a stable citation string and a clear path to report USASpending-backed data issues.

  2. Crawl freshness

    Honest per-route rankings sitemap lastmod

    Rankings sitemap entries now stamp lastmod from each ranking page file git commit instead of a shared fingerprint (commit 0799503).

  3. Data integrity

    State agency and recipient lists coupled to current FY

    Agency and recipient lists on state pages now share the same fiscal-year population as the headline totals, closing a cross-stage coverage mismatch (commit cac9eb9).

  4. Correction

    Per-capita "leader" claim fixed for single-recipient concentration

    A state per-capita ranking could be driven by one large, concentrated recipient rather than broad-based spending. The affected claim was rewritten to disclose the concentration instead of stating a plain "leader."

  5. Correction

    Per-capita rankings caveated for USASpending "multiple recipients" placeholder

    USASpending.gov uses a "MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS" placeholder for some award records. Per-capita rankings that could be distorted by this placeholder now carry an explicit caveat.

  6. Data refresh

    Database rebuild, DOGE state enrichment + OMB outlay categories

    Full data rebuild (etl_version 1, stage:base v2) adding DOGE savings broken out by state and OMB outlay-category classification.

  7. Data refresh

    OMB outlay categories seeded

    Added Office of Management and Budget outlay-category classifications to the spending dataset.

  8. Correction

    Fixed: USASpending placeholder wrongly ranked #1 recipient in all 56 states

    A data-processing bug let the "MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS" placeholder rank as the #1 recipient across every state, and produced a broken $0 narrative on affected pages. Traced to the source join, fixed at the ETL, and every affected page was re-rendered.

  9. Data refresh

    County-state and agency-award-category backfill

    Backfilled state assignment for counties and agency award-category classifications across the existing dataset.

  10. Fix

    DOGE tracker routing fix

    Fixed database adapter parameter numbering and orphaned-parent redirect handling introduced by the DOGE Impact Tracker launch.

  11. Launch

    DOGE Impact Tracker added

    Added agency- and state-level tracking of DOGE-reported contract and grant terminations (initial load: ~29,000 terminations).

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