Monthly Budget Review: November 2024

The federal budget deficit totaled $622 billion in October and November 2024, the first two months of fiscal year 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $242 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year. Outlays were $191 billion (or 18 percent) higher, and revenues were $50 billion (or 7 percent) lower.

The change in the deficit was influenced by the timing of outlays and revenues alike. Outlays in October 2023 were reduced by shifts in the timing of certain federal payments that otherwise would have been due on October 1, 2023, which fell on a Sunday. (Those payments were made in September 2023.) Outlays in November 2024 were boosted by the shift to that month of payments due December 1, 2024, a Saturday. If not for those shifts, the deficit thus far in fiscal year 2025 would have been $541 billion, or $88 billion more than the shortfall at this point last year, and outlays would have been $38 billion more. Part of the increase in the deficit also stems from a postponement in some tax payment deadlines from 2023 into 2024. CBO estimates that those postponed payments, described in more detail below, boosted receipts in 2024 by about $70 billion.