The US government monthly budget statement for July will be released at the top of the hour.

Last week the CBO estimated a $96B monthly deficit while the economist consensus is $94.5B. In July 2012 the deficit was $70B. It’s tough to get a sense of the trend based on any single month because the calendar is so distorted. For instance, July 1, 2012 fell on a Sunday so some payments were moved earlier to June. As a result, in June 2013 the US reported a $116B surplus compared to a $59.7B deficit a year earlier.

In the bigger picture, the deficit is slowly improving, as you can see with a six-month moving average.

US budget deficit

US budget deficit