The Children’s Budget provides a comprehensive analysis of the share of spending allocated to kids over more than 250 government programs in the federal budget. This analysis tracks domestic and international spending on children, including both mandatory and discretionary funding across more than a dozen federal departments and numerous agencies and bureaus. First Focus on Children has published an annual Children’s Budget for more than 15 years.
Children’s Budget 2024 finds that the share of U.S. federal spending on children fell to 8.84% in Fiscal Year 2024, representing the third straight year of decline.
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 high of roughly 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.
In FY 2024, lawmakers spent $19.293 billion less on children than in FY 2023, amounting to an inflation-adjusted decline of nearly 6%. Although this figure represents an improvement over the double-digit declines of FY 2022 and FY 2023, this continued systematic disinvestment in the nation’s children has visibly damaged their health and well-being.
Combined (Domestic and International) Spending on Children
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Biden 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spending Level | $496.131B | $817.670B | $703.601B | $617.855 B | $598.562B | $782.525B |
| Real Change from Prior Year | 16.16% | 59.56% | -20.26% | -16.44% | -5.73% | 27.52% |
| Share of Total Federal Spending | 7.57% | 11.99% | 11.85% | 10.02% | 8.84% | 11.17% |
This current disinvestment is especially alarming in comparison to funding levels during the coronavirus pandemic when the federal government increased investments in children and proved a better future for children was possible.
The COVID-19 public health emergency spurred a surge of investment in children with historic temporary improvements to programs including the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as other timely measures such as economic impact payments. In FY 2022, economic impact payments ended, the expansion of the Child Care and Development Block Grant was phased out, and improvements to the Child Tax Credit expired. In FY 2023 and 2024, lawmakers eliminated multiple large investments in childhood nutrition.
Rapid reductions in pandemic-era programs continued to drive the decline in funding for children in FY 2024. The elimination of Pandemic EBT and the expiration of emergency allotments in SNAP represented the two largest drivers, with those programs alone reducing funding for children by $34.245 billion. Other notable declines include the discretionary portion of the Education Stabilization Fund, the Emergency Connectivity Fund, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. Taken together, the declines across these and all other programs reduced the share of the federal budget going to children to just 8.84% in FY 2024 – more than a quarter off the FY 2021 high of 11.99%.
Program Spotlight
SNAP provides the first line of defense against childhood food insecurity. SNAP provides monthly benefits on an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) card which can only be used to purchase food items at grocery stores and other participating vendors. Nearly 14 million children rely on SNAP for access to nutritious foods and more than one-third of all SNAP recipients are children.
Research has shown that increased investments in FY 2022 (via updates to the Thrifty Food Plan) reduced child poverty by 8.6% in the fourth quarter of 2021, and reduced the severity of poverty for an estimated 6.2 million children. Unfortunately, several proposals by policymakers aim to end these routine updates, which could cause SNAP benefits to fall behind scientific nutrition recommendations and reduce their purchasing power.
International Spending on Children
International spending on children makes up a dramatically smaller share of the federal budget, with total spending equaling approximately 1/100th of domestic spending on kids. Spending on international children’s programs accounts for a mere 0.09% of the total federal budget and only 10.16% of spending internationally in FY 2024.
Total Spending on International Children’s Programs
| 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Biden 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spending Level | $5.23B | $6.36B | $5.73B | $6.11B | $5.94B | $6.28B |
| Share of International Spending | 9.12% | 8.90% | 8.62% | 7.99% | 10.16% | 10.68% |
| Share of Total Federal Spending | 0.08% | 0.09% | 0.10% | 0.10% | 0.09% | 0.09% |
The President’s FY 2025 Budget
President Biden’s budget for FY 2025 offers a glimmer of hope for a better future for kids, increasing investment in children by nearly $200 billion. By far the largest driver of this increase would be the improved refundability of the Child Tax Credit, which would provide an additional $186 billion to families with kids, especially those who currently receive less than the full credit or no credit at all because their income is too low. This increase — totaling 648% — would raise the share of federal spending on kids to 11.17%, a large improvement but still below the investment reached by the pandemic policy response.