WASHINGTON D.C. – Since 1960, the children’s share of the federal budget has diminished by a quarter, while spending on the share devoted to the non-child portions of entitlement programs has more than doubled, according to a new report by two of the nation’s leading think tanks. The third annual version of the study, entitled Kids’ Share: An Analysis of Federal Expenditures on Children Through 2008, was produced and published by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, with funding from First Focus and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The report is an annual examination of federal spending trends and federal tax policies that support and impact children and families.

The report finds that less than one-tenth of the federal budget was spent on children in 2008, $295 billion out of a total of $2.983 trillion in outlays. Moreover, the children’s share of the tax expenditure budget was also less than 10 percent. And while outlays on children have increased in dollars and as a percentage of GDP, children are receiving a smaller share of the domestic federal budget. In fact, the children’s share of domestic federal spending, which excludes defense and international affairs and adds children’s tax expenditures, has shrunk from 20 percent in 1960 to 15 percent in 2008. At the same time, spending on the non-child portions of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid has more than doubled, rising from 22 to 47 percent of domestic spending.

Although spending on children is projected to increase in 2009, as a result of temporary increased spending on Medicaid, education, and other programs, other stimulus spending will increase even more, resulting in a decline in the percentage of federal outlays spent on children, from 9.9 percent in 2008 to 8.2 percent in 2009. And as provisions of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act expire, the report projects that spending on children will shrink from 2.1 percent of GDP in 2008 to 1.9 percent of GDP by 2019, if current policies continue unchanged.

“For policymakers, this analysis should be akin to reading the forecast of a major disaster that will hit the U.S. every year for the next decade,” said Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, a bipartisan children’s advocacy organization that commissioned the report. “For the third straight year, we see that children are among the lowest priorities of our nation’s leaders. Indeed, Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are responsible for this problem, and must join together to stop allowing the relegation of children to the lowest tier of our nation’s list of priorities. We need to be investing in the next generation and instead we are doing the opposite “

“My concern is that spending on children will be squeezed in the future if we don’t address the nation’s budget problems,” said Julia Isaacs, Brookings scholar and co-author of the report. “Over the next 10 years, we are projected to increase spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security by more than 2 percent of GDP. That is more than the entire budget on children. Where will those extra hundreds of billions of dollars come from?”

“It is a critical time for children, especially with many large programs that affect them up for reauthorization in the coming year,” said Tracy Vericker, Urban Institute researcher and co-author on the report. “Monitoring the country’s investment in children – their education, health, and nutrition – is always essential, but it grows increasingly urgent as young people face an economic landscape riddled with challenges.”