About WalletShock

WalletShock shows what everyday goods cost in a reader's own area, how much those prices have changed over one to ten years, what electricity and gasoline cost there, whether data centers are being built nearby, and how the local school district's spending has moved. It places those facts next to the federal lobbying of the industries that sell those goods.

WalletShock shows lobbying activity alongside price changes. It does not assert that one caused the other.

Who it is for

The first release serves leaders who need citable, area-specific numbers: a council member preparing remarks, a reporter checking a claim, an organiser writing a flyer. Every figure names the exact area it describes and its public source, so any panel can be quoted or screenshotted on its own.

Who publishes it

WalletShock is a project of the Dekleptocracy Alliance, a Texas 501(c)(4) nonprofit that builds and launches transparency tools. Its money-flow data comes from the Alliance's QPQ Tracker at purchasingpolicy.org.

Where the numbers come from

Consumer prices from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, electricity and gasoline from the Energy Information Administration, school finances and geography from the Census Bureau, data centers from FracTracker Alliance, and lobbying filings from the Senate Office of Public Records. The methodology page explains how a location becomes a set of data areas and every fallback along the way.

Privacy

Nothing a reader types is stored. A location is sent to the Census Geocoder to find its county and districts, and the report is built from the site's own database.