Children’s Budget 2024
Our national investment in children fell in FY 2024 for the third straight year
The 2024 Children’s Budget finds that the share of U.S. federal spending on children fell to 8.87% in Fiscal Year 2024, representing the third straight year of decline. Both mandatory and discretionary spending for children fell in FY 2024 as a share of the federal budget.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, more U.S. lawmakers prioritized children in their funding decisions, pushing the share of federal spending on children to a record high of nearly 12% in FY 2021. Since then, Congress has clawed back most of these wins for children, resulting in a steady three-year decline in both total dollars and share of spending allocated to kids in the federal budget.
