Total Taxable Resources (TTR) is a measure of relative state and local fiscal capacity that was developed to address the shortcomings of using other metrics—namely state personal income and gross state product (GSP)—to determine such capacity. While it has not been adopted widely to disburse federal dollars, TTR is currently used as:
- A formula factor in distributing grants under the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant and the Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Block Grant
- An optional, disaster-related fiscal capacity measure used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to gauge whether providing assistance through its Individuals and Households Program (IHP) is warranted
In late 2020, FEMA proposed to incorporate TTR into its determinations of whether to provide disaster relief through the Public Assistance (PA) program (see Issue Brief 21-02), which is the largest source of federal disaster assistance for state and local governments. That proposal would have made it more difficult for high-TTR states to receive federal disaster assistance compared to low-TTR states. It was never finalized and has been sidelined ever since.
It is rumored that FEMA is again considering using TTR, in an unknown capacity, when evaluating requests for federal disaster assistance from state and local governments. Because the specifics are unknown, this brief only describes TTR, provides context on its reemergence, and discusses the most recent state TTR data.