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.

In FY 2024, lawmakers spent $18.396 billion less on children than in FY 2023, amounting to an inflation-adjusted decline of 5.59%— although this figure represents an improvement over the double-digit declines of FY 2022 and FY 2023. Investments in children’s programs abroad account for a mere 0.09% of the total federal budget. This continued systematic disinvestment in the nation’s children has visibly damaged their health and well-being. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, child poverty more than doubled in 2022 compared to 2021, with the rate of children living in poverty increasing from 5.2% to 12.4% and rose to 13.7% in 2023. The U.S. infant mortality rate in 2022, which already was much higher than in other wealthy nations, increased for the first time in two decades. Millions of children are losing health care. Nearly 5 million children have lost access to Medicaid through the unwinding process. Global vaccination rates for children have fallen to 2008 levels, with long-forgotten diseases including measles and polio surging in the United States for the first time in decades.

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), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), education and child care stabilization, as well as other timely measures such as economic impact payments. In FY 2022 alone, 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 $33.609 billon. Other notable declines include the discretionary portion of the Education Stabilization Fund, the Emergency Connectivity Fund, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. The end of these pandemic-related investments reduced the share of the federal budget going to children to just 8.87% in FY 2024 – more than a quarter off the FY 2021 high of 11.98%.

Program Spotlight

SNAP, previously known as food stamps, 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 half 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.

Overview of 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 spending on children by nearly $200 billion. By far the largest driver of this increase would be the expanded 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 parents’ income is too low. This increase —totaling 648% —along with other key investments would raise the share of federal spending on kids to 11.11%, a large improvement but still below the investment reached by the pandemic policy response.

Key Takeaways for Children’s Budget 2024

• FY 2024 marked the third straight year that overall spending on children and the share of federal spending on children declined, falling from a high of 11.98% all the way down to 8.87%—meaning children lost more than a quarter of their share of federal funding over this period.
• Children fell even further behind when accounting for inflation—for the third straight year spending on children failed to keep up with inflation.
• The expiration of nutrition program expansions during the pandemic –including SNAP emergency allotments and Pandemic EBT—were the main drivers of the decline in children’s funding in FY 2024.
• Education funding has increased dramatically from FY 2020 to FY 2024. However, this is entirely the result of temporary Education Stabilization Funds which will phase out, withdrawing needed support for public schools, over the next few years. Without this temporary funding, spending on children’s education would have remained roughly flat since FY 2020.
• Investments in children’s health programs represent a bright spot in the Federal Budget, with the share of federal spending increasing by nearly a third from FY 2020 to FY 2024.
• The President’s Budget Request for FY 2025 would increase spending on children by 26.57% adjusted for inflation. By far the largest driver of this increase would be a $186 billion dollar increase in the Child Tax Credit.

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Children’s Budget 2023 finds that U.S. spending on children, both here and abroad, accounts for just 9.89% of the FY 2023 federal budget, a decrease of nearly 16% in real spending from the previous fiscal year. The share of spending on children also falls well shy of the record 11.97% children’s share reached in FY 2021 at the height of the public and economic health emergency. This 2 percentage point drop from historic investments in children during FY 2021 means spending on children in FY 2023 is nearly back to the same level seen in FY 2019 prior to the pandemic.

For more than 15 years, First Focus on Children has produced our annual Children’s Budget, an analysis of the funding — and therefore the value — that we as a nation place on our children. Pushed by the emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. lawmakers finally began moving toward a fair share of federal spending for children. But as that emergency receded, so has our nation’s commitment to securing the health, safety, and well-being of our children at home and abroad.

Our children — and our country — now stand at a crossroads.

COVID-19 and its economic fallout affected every aspect of the lives of children, infringing on their health, education, economic security, safety, and well-being. The full extent of the consequences for children will not be known for years.

In Congressionally enacted legislation, lawmakers provided funding to expand eligibility for essential programs, such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Children and families across this country benefited from improvements made to the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit – with the Child Tax Credit expansions resulting in more than a 40% reduction in childhood poverty in this country. Furthermore, the federal government provided critical funding for child care, education, and Head Start centers to better support children and allow parents and caregivers to return to work. Leaders made investments to reduce child hunger and to expand homeless children and youth wraparound services to address the problems that arose from increased unemployment and school closures.

As a result, the share of federal domestic and international spending on children increased from a record low of 7.56% in FY2020 to 11.97% in FY 2021. Unfortunately, now that the pandemic is over, lawmakers seem to have lost the urgency around the needs of our children and our 2023 analysis reveals that the share of spending on children is headed back down.

Our kids stand at a crossroads. Our leaders have the power to help children achieve their greatest potential and follow their hopes and dreams. The alternative is to head down a path of austerity and underinvestment that fails our children.

We call on Congress and the Administration to choose the right course.

Watch the Children’s Budget Summit

Key Takeaways from Children’s Budget 2023

In FY 2021, investments in children drove child poverty in the U.S. to its lowest level in history, cutting it nearly in half. Unfortunately, that progress has been erased as policy improvements expired. In 2022, child poverty more than doubled to over 12%, the largest increase of poverty in all age groups between 2021 and 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure.

In four of the 11 areas analyzed, First Focus on Children found a notable decrease in the share of children’s spending between FY 2018 and FY 2023, indicating a lag between spending on kids and increases in the federal budget. For instance:

• Income Support: Income support for children declined more than 19% as a share of federal spending in FY 2023 compared to FY 2018, primarily as a result of the expiration of the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC) in January 2022.
• Health Care: The share of federal spending on children’s health care declined nearly 10% in FY 2023 compared to FY 2018, including a nearly 16% decrease in real funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers roughly 9 million children.
• Housing: The share of federal spending on housing for children and families decreased by nearly 11% from FY 2018 to FY 2023. And despite skyrocketing rents, housing assistance for families makes up just 0.3% of the federal budget in FY 2023.
• Early Childhood: The share of federal spending on early childhood programs declined more than 16% between FY 2018 and FY 2023 and makes up just 0.4% of the federal budget in FY 2023.

Internationally, the United States historically has spent just a sliver of its budget on children and that trend continues in Children’s Budget 2023. Children and young people internationally receive a minimal share of foreign assistance funding: Only about 9 cents of every $1 of FY 2023 foreign assistance investments benefit children.

Children’s Budget 2023 analyzes the share of spending allocated to kids across more than 250 government programs in the federal budget. For the purposes of this study, First Focus on Children categorizes programs into 11 investment areas: Early Childhood, Education, Environmental Health, Health Care, Housing, Income Support, Justice and Child Protection, Nutrition, Safety, Training, and International.

First Focus on Children’s annual Children’s Budget is meant to offer U.S. leaders and lawmakers a comprehensive picture of where and how we spend our money on children, and what changes we must make to better prioritize them in federal budget and policy decisions.

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Children’s Budget 2022, released today, finds that the share of federal spending on children climbed to a historic 11.98% of the U.S. budget in FY 2022, producing remarkable declines in child poverty, hunger and the rate of children without health insurance.

“The unprecedented level of investment in our nation’s children this year showed what we can achieve when we prioritize our kids. We made these investments in response to an emergency. But the health and well-being of our children had been in crisis for years before COVID-19 shocked the country’s health and economy. The pandemic is receding, but the emergency of our children’s well-being is not. We urge Congress to apply the lessons learned during the pandemic and to continue investing in our kids at these levels and higher. Our baseline should not be what we have done in the past, but what we have learned is possible.”

First Focus on Children President Bruce Lesley

Children’s Budget 2022 finds that the share of U.S. domestic and international spending on children rose 21% over the last five years, making up 11.98% of all federal spending in FY 2022 (11.88% for domestic, 0.10% for international). This share stands in stark contrast to pre-pandemic investments when the total share of federal spending on children was only 7.55% of the federal budget. Congress, however, has begun backing off these investments, with inflation-adjusted dollars for children dropping nearly 17% between FY 2021 and FY 2022.

The report tracks federal spending in roughly 250 domestic and international programs. This year for the first time we began to track outlays that protect children from the impact of climate change, air pollution, toxic substances, pesticides, and other areas of environmental health.

Sen. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, will address attendees at the 2022 Children’s Budget Summit, where policymakers, experts, and advocates will analyze the report’s findings and its implications for future policy. Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young also will join the summit in a recorded conversation with First Focus on Children’s Bruce Lesley. The live event can be viewed below — participants can also register here to just a live Q&A with the event’s authors.

The Children’s Budget Summit 2022

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The share of federal spending on children rose to 11.2% in 2021, a 3.5 percentage point increase over 2020. The historic increase comes after four straight years in which the share of spending on children declined by 25% to just 7.6%. 

“The pandemic and its economic fallout revealed decades of delayed maintenance on the systems that protect the health and well-being of our children,” said First Focus on Children President Bruce Lesley. “Massive investments in early childhood funding, income supports, education and food programs merely stabilized our kids. And yet, some in Congress are working to reverse even these gains.”

Watch the Children’s Budget Summit

On November 3rd, First Focus on Children will release our 15th annual Children’s Budget analysis just as Congress stands at a proverbial crossroads for our kids. For more than a decade, this report has documented mostly bad news, in which the share of federal spending for kids has sharply declined. But, as Congress grappled with how to respond to a country in crisis, they were compelled to make long-overdue investments this year in early childhood, child care, education, family medical leave, child nutrition, and health care. The question is: Will we return to the old, tragic, downward trend or live up to our promises to the next generation?

To help us answer that question, we invite you to join us for the Children’s Budget Summit — once again held virtually — where we will dig into this year’s report, which tracks federal spending in more than 200 domestic programs as well as our investments in children internationally. We will also hear directly from leaders in the Biden Administration, some of the top experts in the field, and a few Champions for Children who are fighting to ensure Congress invests in kids as we speak.

This year’s featured speakers will include:

• Bruce Lesley, President, First Focus on Children
• Secretary Xavier Becerra, Department of Health and Human Services
• Senator Patty Murray
• Senator Chris Van Hollen
• Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro
• Congresswoman Barbara Lee
• Michele Sumilas, United States Agency for International Development
• Dr. Aisha Nyandoro, CEO, Springboard to Opportunities
• Dr. Lauren Jones, The Ohio State University
• Monica Gonzales, Share Our Strength
• Nell Menefee-Libby, 1,000 Days
• Rachel Clement, ChildFund International
• Andrew McNamee, InterAction

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About Children’s Budget 2020: First Focus on Children is proud to introduce the 14th annual release of its signature Children’s Budget publication. While the COVID-19 health and economic crises have highlighted how important it is to put children and families at the forefront of budget decisions, far too often lawmakers fail to prioritize children when allocating federal resources. This year’s report details the persistence of an alarming trend: children continue to receive a smaller and smaller share of federal spending. Policymakers must take action to change course and correct this inequity.

Key Takeaways from Children’s Budget 2020

Investing More Government Resources in Kids Would Make a Significant Difference: The child poverty rate remains 54 percent higher than that for adults – and the poverty rate is even lower for the elderly, who benefit from Social Security and Medicare (the two largest government programs). These results show that significant government investment could reduce hardship for children as it has for the elderly.

Our Share of Spending on Children Continues to Decline Despite Higher Discretionary Caps: Lawmakers raised statutory caps on discretionary spending in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2020. Yet children didn’t receive their fair share of those increases – resulting in the share of federal spending on children dropping once again in 2020, to 7.48 percent. If the president’s budget were enacted for 2021, the kids’ share of spending would be even worse – dropping to 7.32 percent of total federal spending.

Spending on Children Internationally is Very Low: For the first time, this year’s Children’s Budget presents our analysis of federal spending on children internationally via the international affairs budget. We found that our investment in kids abroad has flatlined at 0.11 percent of federal spending. As a share of our international affairs budget, kids abroad receive about $9.54 of every $100 spent on foreign aid.

Lawmakers Should Reverse This Trend and Fund Children’s Priorities: At a time when children face severe uncertainty about their ability to safely receive an education, have stable housing, and get proper nourishment, Congress must fund adequate investments in children’s futures. Even before COVID-19, children faced the following obstacles:

• 1 in 5 children in foster care will become instantly homeless upon aging out of the system.
• 89% of children eligible for Early Head Start do not have access to it.
• 15% of U.S. households with school-age children do not have access to high-speed internet at home.
• 2.2 million children were affected by parental opioid use or their own use in 2017.
• 75% of families eligible for rental assistance in the U.S. do not receive it.
• 1 in 7 children lived in a household that struggled to put food on the table in 2018.
• There were 25 school shootings in 2019.
• The youth unemployment rate was 30% in May 2020.

Congress and the president must take concrete steps towards curing these inequities, meeting the growing needs of our nation’s children today and into the future. We call on this country’s leaders to prioritize the unique needs of our children so they all can thrive.

Highlights from the Children’s Budget Summit

Watch the Children’s Budget Summit

During the first virtual Children’s Budget Summit, we discussed the findings in this year’s Children’s Budget book — and heard directly from Congressional leaders who will be responsible for the next federal budget.

Featured speakers included:

• Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO)
• Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
• Representative Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)
• Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)
• Ambassador Susan Jacobs (Retired), fmr.  Special Advisor for Children’s Issues at the Department of State
• Tom Wyatt, CEO of KinderCare Learning Centers
• Laurie Combe, President of National Association of School Nurses
• Roxanne Paisible, Senior Manager, Children and Youth at InterAction
• Kimberly Morrison, teacher, Detroit Public Schools

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