# Federal Budget --- Social Programs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 5, 2003, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769 "2003-06-05T04:31:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Major\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Major\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Kong)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2003, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769/1 "2003-06-05T04:31:23Z")
What percentage of the federal budget goes to social programs? No, I can’t define social programs. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2003, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769/2 "2003-06-05T05:19:24Z")
You can look through the various budgets by cabinet position and figure it out, youself at [Budget of the United States Government Fiscal Year 2004 Federal Programs by Agency and Account](http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2004/fpaa.html). Or you can look over other various tables, but going to the [homepsge of the Office of management and Budget](http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/). Since you are unsure what a social program might be, you might be better off looking at the numbers and drawing your own conclusions. [This site](http://www.kowaldesign.com/budget/) clims to identify the budget expenditures by groups of programs. The numbers it provides look to be in the ballpark. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769/3 "2003-06-06T11:32:16Z")
If you exclude paid-in programs like Medicare, it’s actually rather small – a few percent. Republican demagogues (assuming that’s not redundant) have long tried to identify welfare and similar programs as budget-busters, but as is all too often the case with such folks, that’s pure class-war bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769/4 "2003-06-06T14:21:57Z")
Aha, I just had to look this up for another thread, yesterday. The OMB site was an excellent suggestion. It will tell you that low-income-based programs (social programs for the poor, essentially) amount to about 6% of federal spending. That does exclude Medicare, however. There are probably other things that qualify as “social programs” and you’d have to cobble together an amount and do the math. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769/5 "2003-06-06T15:00:24Z")
According to [this site](http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2004/pdf/budget/tables.pdf) some social programs cost the following: Social Security 474 Billion Mediare 241 Billion Medicare and SCHIP 167 Billion (Don’t know what this is) Defense is 376 Billion and non defense is 416 Billion So, just SS and Medicare are 882 Billion Dollars out of a 2.14 Trillion Dollar Budget. Thats 41% of the total budget going to social programs. As to the 416 non defense budget dollars, I don’t know how much goes to social programs, but I would imagine most of it does. A lot goes to the states (About 15% of total federal budget, IIRC) which is ultimately used for lots of social programs. ---
**Author:** ![MaryEFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/federal-budget-social-programs/179769/6 "2003-06-06T17:11:26Z")
Would you count highways as social or commercial? Dept of the Interior (natural resources, timber, oil, ores) commercial with social effects. Maybe everything gov’t does has social effects. Duh, gov’t is what we get together to do, as opposed to what we do individually. I can see why you decided not to define social programs.