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Spending Analyses:
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What are the biggest federal programs?
The three biggest federal programs are health care (including Medicare and Medicaid), pensions (including Social Security), and Defense.
US Federal Budget Analyst
FY20 Federal Budget Spending Estimates
for Fiscal Years 2019 - 2023
| Units: By default, values are displayed in billions of nominal dollars. By using a dropdown control in the table heading you can select millions of dollars, percent of GDP, percent of federal total, percent of overall total, dollars per capita of population, and thousand dollars per capita of population. US Budget Year: By default, the table displays budgeted and estimated numbers from the most recent US Federal Budget submitted to the Congress by the president. But you can look at numbers from other US Federal Budgets using this dropdown control. US Budget Year: By default, the table displays budgeted and estimated numbers from the most recent US Federal Budget submitted to the Congress by the president. But you can look at numbers from other US Federal Budgets using this dropdown control. | ||
| US Federal Government FY 20 Budget Estimated Outlays in $ billion nominal | ||
| -5yr -1yr as of Winter 2019 +1yr +5yr | ||
| Estimated Outlays from US Federal FY 20 Budget | ||||||||||
| Change View: people old functions radical census programs altprog oldprog COFOG Change Data View: The default view of spending
data is by function. But you can also view data by program or the UN COFOG classification system. | FY 2019 Outlays | FY 2020 Outlays | FY 2021 Outlays | FY 2022 Outlays | FY 2023 Outlays | |||||
| [+] | Pensions | 1,111.2 | 1,163.6 | 1,236.2 | 1,313.9 | 1,386.8 | 
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| [+] | Health Care | 1,252.2 | 1,301.2 | 1,371.4 | 1,442.7 | 1,481.6 |
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| [+] | Education | 156.1 | 125.8 | 115.6 | 113.6 | 109.1 |
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| [+] Charts: Click on a to display a bar of data in a row or column of this table.Click on  to display a time-series chart of data in a row.[+] Drill-down: Click on the [+] to drill down to more detailed numbers. For federal spending line items (but not revenue) you can drill down three levels to view about 4,000 items of spending at the “agency code” level. | Defense | 939.4 | 1,008.5 | 1,046.5 | 1,072.6 | 1,076.0 |
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| [+] | Welfare | 378.6 | 355.9 | 355.3 | 365.4 | 368.2 |
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| [+] | Protection | 41.6 | 43.6 | 47.8 | 50.2 | 52.1 |
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| [+] | Transportation | 98.9 | 100.9 | 100.2 | 87.4 | 83.4 |
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| [+] | General Government | 58.6 | 58.7 | 56.3 | 55.9 | 55.5 |
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| [+] | Other Spending | 99.2 | 108.7 | 68.4 | 66.0 | 53.6 |
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| [+] | Interest | 393.5 | 478.8 | 547.5 | 609.9 | 663.7 |
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| [+] | Balance | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
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| [+] | Total Spending: Start chart | 4,529.2 | 4,745.6 | 4,945.2 | 5,177.5 | 5,330.1 |
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| [+] | Federal Deficit | 1,091.5 | 1,100.8 | 1,068.3 | 1,048.9 | 908.6 |
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| [+] | Gross Public Debt | 22,775.6 | 24,057.5 | 25,333.0 | 26,544.3 | 27,644.6 |
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| [+] | Other Borrowing | 221.7 | 181.2 | 207.2 | 162.4 | 191.7 |
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| [+] | Agency GSE Debt | 9,607.9 | 10,030.2 | 10,482.1 | 10,966.5 | 11,486.2 |
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| [+] | Grants | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | | |||
| Outlays: Pie Chart: Select a pie chart you wish to display. You can create a pie chart for federal, state and local, and overall spending/revenue. b - budgeted estimate in US FY20 budget e - estimated by usgovernmentspending.com g - 'guesstimated' projection by usgovernmentspending.com Data Sources for 2019: Data Sources for 2023: | ||||||||||
Spending Definitions
Pensions: Pensions, disability.
Health Care: Health care.
Education: K-12, college, training.
Defense: Military, foreign policy, veterans, foreign aid.
Welfare: Cash welfare, food stamps, unemployment benefits, workers compensation, housing, excluding health care.
Protection: Police, fire, law courts, prisons.
Transportation: Road, rail, airports.
General Government: Legislative, executive, finance.
Other Spending: Research, economic development, agriculture, energy, environment.
Interest: Interest on government debt.
Total Spending: Federal: total outlays including grants to state and local. State and local: direct spending on programs.
Notes
The table shows overall budgeted federal outlays for major functions for the next five years, as estimated in the historical tables in the current presidential budget.
You can change the budget to be analyzed or drill down to view more detailed spending information.
But. For the “default” and “programs” views, we have extracted data from the Public Budget Database to expand Social Security and Medicare beyond the single line item each gets in Table 3.2. The Public Budget Database starts publishing six years of estimated outlays with the FY10 budget, so this page will only provide a full six years of estimated outlays starting with the FY10 budget.
Data Sources: Federal spending from Budget of the United States Government.
For a discussion of the sources of the government spending data used here read How We Got the Data for usgovernmentspending.com.
Budget Updates: The president’s budget is typically published each year in February.
Download Federal Budget Data for 2019-2023
Tab-delimited Table
Here is the budget table with columns tab-delimited. You can cut and paste directly into a spreadsheet:
You can copy all the text in the textbox by clicking your cursor in the box. Then press Ctrl-A and Ctrl-C and paste the text into your spreadsheet.
Suggested Video: All About Debt
Top Spending Requests:
Find DEFICIT stats and history.
Get WELFARE stats and history.
US BUDGET overview and pie chart.
Find NATIONAL DEBT today.
DOWNLOAD spending data or debt data.
See FEDERAL BUDGET breakdown and estimated vs. actual.
MILITARY SPENDING details, budget and history.
ENTITLEMENT SPENDING history.
See BAR CHARTS of spending, debt.
Check STATE spending: CA NY TX FL and compare.
See SPENDING ANALYSIS briefing.
See SPENDING HISTORY briefing.
Take a COURSE at Spending 101.
Make your own CUSTOM CHART.
Spending Data Sources
Spending data is from official government sources.
- Federal spending data since 1962 comes from the president’s budget.
- All other spending data comes from the US Census Bureau.
Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.
Detailed table of spending data sources here.
Medicare breakdown here; Medicaid breakdown here.
Federal spending data begins in 1792.
State and local spending data begins in 1820.
State and local spending data for individual states begins in 1957.
Gross Federal Debt
| Debt Now: | $38,380,536,147,996.03 | Debt 2/2020: | $23,409,959,150,243.63 |
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Data Sources for 2019_2024:
Sources for 2019:
GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years
Sources for 2024:
GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years
> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.
Blog
Medicaid Update for FY2024
On January 14, 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published its annual report on National Health Expenditures and its NHE Tables includes data on Medicaid from 1960 to 2023. On January 15, 2026, usgovernmentspending.com updated its Medicaid data.
| Item | 2024 Estimate | 2024 Actual |
| Federal Medicaid | $567.2 bn | $567.2 bn |
| State Medicaid (net) | $124.4 bn | $253.2 bn |
| Total Medicaid | $691.6 bn | $820.4 bn |
The federal Medicaid number comes from the Federal Budget Subfunction 558: Grants to states for Medicaid. The state contribution comes from the NHE Tables.
usgovernmentspending.com publishes "guesstimates" of state and local spending from the latest year published by the Census Bureau (currently FY 2023) to the last year in the Historical Tables of the federal budget. (currently 2029 from the FY25 budget). So we have developed "guesstimates" of Medicaid spending going out to 2029, assuming that the overall Medicaid spending increases at the same rate as the federal "Grants to States for Medicaid" increases.
National Health Expenditure data is updated each year in mid December.
On March 27, 2025 the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Long Term Budget Outlook for 2025, which projects federal spendin ...
On November 22, 2025 usgovernmentspending.com updated FY2025 state revenue with quarterly tax data released by the US Ce ...
> blog
Budget News
President’s FY 2025 Budget Release Scheduled for March 11
Although the FY 2024 appropriations process is not yet resolved
Biden to Release Budget March 9
will press McCarthy On Default Risk - Bloomberg
Biden to Release 2023 Budget Request on March 28
how the administration expects to spend money for priorities including aid to Ukraine and the continuing effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic, as well as legislative proposals such as increased funding for community policing programs, cancer research, and mental health education.
> archive
Spend Links
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presented by Christopher Chantrill