Research Note #19:
Social Security Benefits as a Percentage of Total Federal Budget Expenditures

Presently, the Social Security program is the largest single item in the annual federal government budget. As a percentage of total federal expenditures, in 2002 Social Security benefits were approximately 22.6% of federal expenditures. As a percentage of federal outlays, Social Security benefits have ranged from a low of 0.22% (during World War II) to a high of 23.2% in 2001.

There are several other points of interest in the data. The 1950 Amendments, for example, which significantly increased the value of Social Security benefits, produced the largest year-to-year jump in the percentage (almost doubling from 1950 to 1951). The expansions of coverage in the 1954 and 1956 Amendments (and the addition of disability benefits in 1956) can be seen in its impact on expenditures. The Amendments of 1972, which were the last major expansionary amendments, also produced a detectable rise in the percentage of the federal budget going to Social Security. (The 1977 Amendments scaled-back the level of Social Security benefits--an effect which is not readily discernable in the Table since this was primarily a reduction in future levels from what they would otherwise have been.)

As an interesting point of comparison, even the peak year of 2001 in which expenditures for Social Security topped 23% of the federal budget, this was far from the most the federal government has ever committed to social welfare spending. Following the Civil War, the federal government funded pensions for Union veterans and their survivors and dependents. In the peak year of 1894, the government spent 37% of its annual budget on these Civil War pensions.