The US government's budget deficit shrank to $66 billion in May, reaching $426 billion as additional pandemic-related aid programs expired, according to the Treasury's monthly budget breakdown released on Friday.

Total collections for last month were $3.375 trillion, while outlays were $3.8 billion, resulting in a rounded-up deficit of $426 billion for the government in the eight months from the start of the fiscal year 2022, according to the breakdown.

At this time last year, the deficit was $2.1 trillion.

The Biden administration has committed to keeping the 2022 deficit under $1 trillion and has thus far met that goal.

According to the budget breakdown, expenditure in May fell by 24 percent, owing mostly to the expiration of government stimulus grants to firms and people granted by Congress as relief for the coronavirus pandemic, which began in 2020.

Both the Biden administration and the prior Trump administration provided hundreds of billions of dollars in pandemic assistance.