SC living on the federal dime?

The federal government never has been popular in South Carolina. But the Palmetto State is very willing to take federal dollars.

South Carolina is among the top 10 states with the most favorable “balance of payments” with the federal government – meaning it gets more federal money than its citizens pay in federal taxes, according to a new study.

For every $1 South Carolinians send to Washington, they get back $1.71 from the feds. That balance of payments left South Carolina $23 billion in the black in fiscal year 2015, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York.

That is the ninth highest profit for any state. The top five states were Virginia, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina and Alabama.

South Carolina also is in the top six when it comes to federal spending as a percentage of the state’s gross domestic product.

Even after federal taxes are taken into account, federal spending in South Carolina accounted for 11.4 percent of the state’s domestic product, ranking behind only Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia, Alabama and Kentucky.

Thirteen states had a negative balance with Washington, paying more in federal taxes than they received in federal spending.

New York is the worst off, at $47.8 billion in the red, followed by New Jersey, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Minnesota, Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, New Hampshire, Nebraska and Wyoming.