States have spent $3.2 billion on these systems — and they're still building them.
Every dot is one state's own child-welfare data system — the thing a caseworker
has to fight at 2 a.m. to keep a kid safe. Bigger dot, more money. The color is where it stands
today. This is only the spending that's on the public record, and it's still billions.
Every number here is cited. States
have to win legislative funding for these systems and report it to the federal government — so these are
public record, not our estimate. This is the 31 states we could document ($3.22B total); 21 more
haven't reported a figure yet. Hover any state for its source. Maude
backs every fact she gives you with one.
$3.22B
documented across 31 states — a floor, not a ceiling
21
more states have no public figure yet
4
of the current builds already failed or troubled
Where it stands
Failed / contract terminated
Troubled — over budget or not delivering
In development / being built
Figure under verification (our own ledger)
Dot size = reported spend
~$20M
~$100M
$1.7B (CA, multi-yr)
The federal government's own scorekeeper
After ten years and $2.28 billion, 30% of these systems are running — 10% of the new ones.
The average build takes 61 months.
— ASPE, June 2026 (U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services). National figure; shown as context, not added to the state total above.
Every one of these was going to be the one that finally worked.
They were all sold the same way: this is enormously hard, it takes years and hundreds of millions,
trust the people who've done it before. It isn't a story about bad luck. A system that's hard,
slow, and expensive to build is a system that keeps getting paid to be built — and one a small county or
a tribe can never afford. The difficulty is the product.
FreeWIS is the counter-argument you can click. It's built, it runs on synthetic data, and if compliance
is your job you can generate a test caseload's report and check it yourself. Not "could, if." Now.
What this map is careful about
The point isn't to win the outrage contest — it's to put up a number you can't argue with. So:
—
21 states aren't on it yet. They haven't published a figure we could document — so $3.22B is a floor, not a ceiling. The real national number is higher.
—
Two figures are flagged, not hidden. Connecticut and Pennsylvania show dashed because our own ledger couldn't verify them; drop both and it's still ~$3.04B.
—
No vendor is named. Several of these are already being rebuilt by a newly-hired vendor — naming them would blame the new team for the old system. The states' spending is public record; the finger-pointing isn't ours to publish. (Maude will name names, with citations, if you ask her.)
—
The eye-popping non-child-welfare numbers stayed out. A $31B unemployment-fraud loss, a $1.9B court system — real, but not CCWIS. Different fight.
Every number here is cited to the record. That's the whole point.