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What is Entitlement Spending?

In FY 2025, federal government spending on pensions, health care and welfare was $3.85 trillion according to the Office of Management and Budget. Budgeted entitlement spending for FY 2026 is $4.26 trillion.

Federal Entitlement Spending Analysis  

 

This page shows the current trends in US federal entitlement spending. Also see charts on US entitlement spending history.

Recent US Federal Entitlement Spending

Recent Federal Entitlement Spending

Chart S.51f: Recent Federal Entitlement Spending

Federal Entitlement Spending was increasing strongly, year on year, in the late 2000s, driven by increased spending for health care and welfare in the Great Recession of 2008-09, but then saw a years of minimal increase before health care spending took off in response to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. Federal entitlement spending jolted up in the COVID years and maintained about half the jolt as it increased in the mid 2020s.

Federal entitlement spending for 2025 was $3.85 trillion.

Recent Federal Entitlm'ts as Pct GDP

Chart S.52f: Recent Federal Entitlm'ts as Pct GDP

Viewed from a GDP perspective, federal entitlement spending rocketed from 10.6 percent GDP in 2007 to nearly 14 percent GDP in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. But in the subsequent economic recovery federal entitlement spending declined to 12.6 percent GDP and just peaked over 13 percent GDP in 2016. Federal entitlement spending jolted up in the COVID years but began a decline as a percent of GDP in the mid 2020s.

Federal entitlement spending for 2025 was 13.1 percent GDP.

Federal Entitlement Spending Since 1930

Federal Entitlements since 1930

Chart S.53f: Federal Entitlements since 1930

In 1930 there was no entitlement spending, except a small amount of health care spending. But the Great Depression ended that, with welfare spending to ease unemployment peaking at nearly 0.9 percent GDP in 1934.

After World War II pension spending -- mostly Social Security -- surged, reaching 2.4 percent of GDP in 1961. Welfare spending was about 1 percent of GDP.

With the Great Society programs of the mid 1960s entitlement spending exploded to over 8 percent of GDP by the mid 1970s.

Since 1980 entitlement spending has increased to over 12 percent of GDP, mostly due to a near tripling of health care spending from 2 percent of GDP to nearly 6 percent GDP. In the Great Recession of 2008-09 entitlement spending bumped by 2 percent of GDP, mostly for health care and welfare. But in the COVID crisis of 2020 entitlement spending bumped 7 percent of GDP to 18.1 percent of GDP before declining in the aftermath.

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ENTITLEMENT SPENDING history.

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Check STATE spending: CA NY TX FL and compare.

See SPENDING ANALYSIS briefing.

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Take a COURSE at Spending 101.

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Spending Data Sources

Spending data is from official government sources.

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.

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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 2021_2029:

Sources for 2021:

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 2029:

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

US, State Population Update for 2025

On January 21, 2026 the US Census Bureau released its US national and state population estimates for July 1, 2025.  On February 7, 2026 usgovernmentspending.com updated its US and state population data as follows:

usgovernmentspending.com uses population data in computing per capita spending and revenue data. You can see per capita spending data in a chart here, and in a table of spending here.

You can check the data update schedule here.

Medicaid Update for FY2024
On January 14, 2026, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published its annual report on  ...

CBO Long Term Budget Outlook for 2025
On March 27, 2025 the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Long Term Budget Outlook for 2025, which projects federal spendin ...

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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.

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