December Deficit Is Half of Year Earlier Figure

The federal government on Wednesday reported an $11.6-billion budget deficit for December, as red ink was less than half the level of a year earlier because of a shift in a 1988 payment of Social Security checks.

The Treasury Department reported receiving $93.8 billion in revenues last month, up 9.7% from the same period a year earlier. Spending was down 4.1% from December, 1987, to $105.4 billion.

The December, 1987, deficit had been $24.4 billion.

For the first three months of the 1989 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the budget deficit was $67.6 billion, 17.8% less than in the same period in fiscal 1988, again because of the shift in Social Security payments.

Economist Michael K. Evans, an economic consultant in Washington, said the lower deficit figures for this year occurred because Social Security checks that normally would have been mailed out in January, 1988, went out at the end of the previous month because of the New Year’s holiday, inflating the deficit for December, 1987.

Evans said that, when the payment shift is taken into consideration, this year’s deficit is running about as expected and should hit about $165 billion in fiscal 1989, up $10 billion from the year that ended Sept. 30.