Follow the Money

Federal Spending by Year

What the federal government actually spent, split into the 19 budget functions it appropriates against — its own classification, not a grouping invented here. Every closed fiscal year since 1940 is on the same 19 lines, which is what makes two years genuinely comparable. Below, any two of them, side by side, with prices taken out.

Nobody is graded on this page

A fiscal year’s outlays are the accumulated result of appropriations passed by many Congresses, entitlements written decades earlier, interest on borrowing already done, and the economy. This page states what the record shows for each year. It draws no line from a figure to a person, and no official on this site is scored on anything here.

FY2025, the last closed year

$7.01T in total outlays · 23.1% of GDP

The composition of the most recent fiscal year the government has closed the books on. Figures are as published, in that year’s dollars — no deflator is applied within a single year because there is nothing to deflate against.

Budget function	Outlays	Share
Social Security 650 · Human resources	$1.58T	22.5%
Medicare 570 · Human resources	$996.7B	14.2%
Health 550 · Human resources	$978.5B	14.0%
Net interest 900	$970.1B	13.8%
National Defense 050	$916.1B	13.1%
Income Security 600 · Human resources	$701.6B	10.0%
Veterans Benefits and Services 700 · Human resources	$377.2B	5.4%
Transportation 400 · Physical resources	$145.3B	2.1%
Natural Resources and Environment 300 · Physical resources	$89.8B	1.3%
Administration of Justice 750 · Other functions	$83.1B	1.2%
Community and Regional Development 450 · Physical resources	$82.4B	1.2%
Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services 500 · Human resources	$72.0B	1.0%
Agriculture 350 · Other functions	$47.4B	0.7%
International Affairs 150 · Other functions	$45.2B	0.6%
General Science, Space, and Technology 250 · Other functions	$42.0B	0.6%
General Government 800 · Other functions	$40.5B	0.6%
Energy 270 · Physical resources	$20.8B	0.3%
Commerce and Housing Credit 370 Negative in FY2025, but not by construction: this function was positive in 64 of its 86 published years. Money came back in — repayments and downward reestimates on credit programs — faster than it went out.	−$28.1B	-0.4%
Undistributed offsetting receipts 950 Receipts the government nets against outlays rather than counting as revenue — negative in every one of the 86 years published.	−$150.3B	-2.1%
Total, federal outlays	$7.01T	100%

The total is OMB’s own published figure and is never re-derived from the rows above. In FY2025 the rows sum to the published total exactly.

Two years, side by side

86 fiscal years available

Pick any two closed fiscal years. The comparison defaults to constant dollars — both years expressed in FY2025 dollars using the deflator the government uses on its own historical tables — because a nominal comparison across even a decade is mostly a reading of prices. The figures as published are one click away, and every row carries both.

Earlier yearLater yearBoth years in FY2025 dollars (uncheck for the figures as published)

Federal outlays went from $3.69T in FY2015 to $7.01T in FY2025, as published. In FY2025 dollars that is $4.81T to $7.01T — +45.7% in real terms. Prices, on the government’s own outlay deflator, moved +30.4% over the same span, and the table below has that removed from every row. Against the economy: 20.3% of GDP in FY2015, 23.1% in FY2025.

Swipe the table sideways for more →

Budget function	FY2015	FY2025	Change	Share of outlays
Social Security 650	$1.16T	$1.58T	+36.6%	24.0% → 22.5% (−1.5pp)
Medicare 570	$712.1B	$996.7B	+40.0%	14.8% → 14.2% (−0.6pp)
Health 550	$628.7B	$978.5B	+55.6%	13.1% → 14.0% (+0.9pp)
Net interest 900	$291.0B	$970.1B	+233.4%	6.0% → 13.8% (+7.8pp)
National Defense 050	$768.7B	$916.1B	+19.2%	16.0% → 13.1% (−2.9pp)
Income Security 600	$663.3B	$701.6B	+5.8%	13.8% → 10.0% (−3.8pp)
Veterans Benefits and Services 700	$208.3B	$377.2B	+81.1%	4.3% → 5.4% (+1.1pp)
Transportation 400	$116.7B	$145.3B	+24.5%	2.4% → 2.1% (−0.4pp)
Natural Resources and Environment 300	$47.0B	$89.8B	+91.2%	1.0% → 1.3% (+0.3pp)
Administration of Justice 750	$67.7B	$83.1B	+22.9%	1.4% → 1.2% (−0.2pp)
Community and Regional Development 450	$26.9B	$82.4B	+205.7%	0.6% → 1.2% (+0.6pp)
Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services 500	$159.1B	$72.0B	−54.7%	3.3% → 1.0% (−2.3pp)
Agriculture 350	$24.1B	$47.4B	+96.7%	0.5% → 0.7% (+0.2pp)
International Affairs 150	$67.8B	$45.2B	−33.4%	1.4% → 0.6% (−0.8pp)
General Science, Space, and Technology 250	$38.3B	$42.0B	+9.4%	0.8% → 0.6% (−0.2pp)
General Government 800	$27.3B	$40.5B	+48.4%	0.6% → 0.6%
Energy 270	$8.9B	$20.8B	+132.8%	0.2% → 0.3% (+0.1pp)
Commerce and Housing Credit 370	−$49.4B	−$28.1B	+$21.3B	−1.0% → −0.4% (+0.6pp)
Undistributed offsetting receipts 950	−$151.0B	−$150.3B	+$715M	−3.1% → −2.1% (+1.0pp)
Total, federal outlays	$4.81T	$7.01T	+45.7%	100% → 100%

Budget functions are the government’s own classification — the one Congress appropriates against — not a grouping this site invented. The total is OMB’s published figure, never re-derived from the rows: OMB rounds each row independently, so the column sums to within a few million of it on figures in the trillions. Percentage changes are omitted where a figure is zero or negative — undistributed offsetting receipts are money coming back in, which OMB nets against outlays, and a percentage change across zero says nothing. Nobody is named or scored on this page: a fiscal year’s outlays are the result of appropriations by many Congresses, entitlements written decades earlier, and interest on borrowing already done.

Link to this comparison — FY2015 against FY2025 in FY2025 dollars.

Where the numbers come from

OMB Historical Tables, Table 3.1 (Outlays by Superfunction and Function: 1940-2031); function codes from Table 3.2 — the table itself · compiled Aug. 30, 2026. The 19 functions sum to OMB’s published total in every one of the 86 years, and that total matches the outlays this site already publishes from a different OMB table — which are themselves cross-checked against the Treasury’s Monthly Treasury Statement. Two tables built by different desks from the same books have to agree, and the chain ends at Treasury rather than at a spreadsheet.

Constant dollars use OMB Historical Tables, Table 10.1 (Gross Domestic Product and Deflators Used in the Historical Tables: 1940-2031), cross-checked against Table 1.3 (figures), covering FY1940–FY2025. It is the composite outlay deflator, not a consumer price index: CPI measures a household’s shopping basket, and the federal government does not buy that basket — it buys pay, procurement, medical care, grants to states and interest. Using OMB’s own index means a constant-dollar figure here can be checked against OMB’s own constant-dollar table rather than resting on a choice made on this site.

Only closed fiscal years appear. OMB’s estimate columns for future years are dropped at ingestion, not greyed out on the page — an estimate that reaches a page is an estimate that gets quoted as a fact. A function with no published figure in a year (Medicare before it existed) shows no figure and is left out of the change arithmetic; it is never printed as zero, because “spent nothing” and “did not exist” are different claims. Nothing on this page is interpolated.

Related: the 236-year debt climb puts the annual balance beside the accumulated total, and Bills & Spending reads individual laws line by line — including two laws side by side, on the same constant-dollar footing this page uses.