Pie Chart Of Government Spending

Is federal spending on the armed services well-nigh 50 times higher than on food stamps? That's the message of a pie chart now circulating on the Net.

The pie chart is headlined, "Expect closely at this nautical chart of federal spending." Information technology says spending on the "military" accounts for 57 percent of the federal dollar, with other categories ranging from 1 per centum to 6 pct.

The explanation says, "Somewhere within the tiny orange sliver at the bottom is the nutrient stamp program that Republicans blame for our upkeep deficit. Then ends today'southward lesson in Republican logic."

To bank check the accuracy of this pie nautical chart, we had to make a few assumptions. For starters, the chart isn't dated, so nosotros used estimated figures for fiscal year 2015. And since the nautical chart uses some not-standard categories for federal spending, we had to brand a few assumptions about which departmental spending should be placed in what category.

That said, we institute some key problems with the graphic's calculations and conclusions. To empathise them, we'll first provide some background on how federal spending works.

Most federal spending tin be categorized as discretionary or mandatory. The levels of discretionary spending are determined through the congressional appropriations process, with both houses of Congress and the president ultimately signing off on an agreed level of spending. Nigh spending past chiffonier departments and independent agencies falls under this category, and it's "discretionary" in the sense that if political leaders want to heighten, or lower, the amount of spending for a given purpose, they tin do so by tinkering with appropriations bills.

The other major category is mandatory spending, which is sometimes referred to equally "entitlements." Spending within this category is adamant by a formula, and the big pieces are three familiar programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. For each mandatory program, the amount spent is tied directly to the number of people deemed eligible past age or income level. These programs effectively run on autopilot unless Congress changes the formula, making this blazon of spending more insulated from lawmakers and the president than discretionary spending.

With that background, let's now have a look at how the figures in the pie chart compare to a breakdown of financial 2015 discretionary spending (the 3rd cavalcade), and to fiscal 2015 total spending (that is, discretionary plus mandatory spending, in the terminal column).

Category of spending	Percent listed in meme	Category's share of 2015 discretionary spending	Category's share of all 2015 spending (including both discretionary and mandatory spending)
Defense and homeland security	57	54	xvi
Teaching	six	6	3
Veterans	6	1	iv
Housing and Urban Development	5	3	ane
Health and Man Services	5	9	28
Land Department and foreign help	3	v	2 Mark Finchem stated on September 22, 2022 in a Secretary of State debate Ballot harvesting "altered the upshot" of a urban center council election in Yuma County, Arizona.
Energy and EPA	3	vii	ane
Science and NASA	3	2	1
Transportation	three	ii	4
Labor	2	one	1
Food and agronomics	ane	2	iv
Social Security	0	1	25
Remainder*	half-dozen	vii	9

* "Residual" includes legislative branch, judicial branch, independent agencies and departments of Commerce, Interior, and Treasury, minus offsetting receipts.

The pie chart's figures aren't far off if y'all're looking just at discretionary spending, though even here there are some differences. For instance, the pie chart significantly understates the amount of spending going to health and energy.

More problematic, though, is that the pie nautical chart ignores mandatory spending. Nearly 60 percent of all federal spending is considered mandatory, with 34 per centum considered discretionary and half-dozen percent devoted to interest. In other words, the nautical chart, despite referring broadly to "federal spending," merely counts about one-third of federal spending -- the discretionary part.

If nosotros expect at all of federal spending, the moving-picture show changes:

• The "military machine" share, including spending on homeland security, shrinks from 57 percent to 16 per centum.

• The "health" share zooms from 5 pct to 26 percent, one time expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid are counted.

• Social Security -- a category not even included in the pie chart now circulating on social media feeds -- rises from 0 percent to 25 pct.

• Food and agriculture quadruples from 1 percent to four percent due to the inclusion of nutrient stamps, a mandatory program, and agricultural income and cost supports.

Calculating information technology this way severely undercuts the graphic's bulletin. Rather than the federal budget being dominated by the military, the budget is actually dominated past spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. In fact. the ratio of military spending to food and agriculture spending in the total budget is four-to-ane, rather than 57-to-1.

A more accurate representation would be this ane:

Our ruling

A social-media meme says that 57 percent of federal spending goes to the military and just 1 percent goes to food and agriculture, including nutrient stamps.

To get numbers that approximate this, the pie chart scarlet-picks but discretionary spending. But that means the pie nautical chart represents only about one-third of federal spending. Once you include the lx percent of the budget that is mandatory spending, the military share plunges from 57 percent to xvi pct, and the categories that include Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid collectively account for a majority of federal spending. Spending on food and agriculture is still small, but it does quadruple from 1 percent to 4 percent.

Due to its skewed methodology, the pie chart offers a deeply distorted picture of federal spending. We charge per unit the claim False.