Less than one-tenth of the federal budget was spent on children in 2008, $295 billion out of a total of $2,983 billion in outlays. Well over a third of the federal budget (38 percent) was allocated to the elderly and disabled for the non-child portions of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The children’s share of the tax expenditure budget was also less than 10 percent.

This third annual Kids’ Share report examines expenditures on children during a time federal budgets are undergoing much change. The report's estimate of how much of the federal budget was directed toward children in 2008 is based on detailed budget data released in May 2009 and captures the effects of early responses to the recession. The effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 do not appear in the 2008 expenditures but do figure prominently in the expenditure projections included in the final section of the report.  

After an initial section explaining the methodology involved in estimating children’s expenditures across more than 100 federal programs and tax provisions, the report presents findings in four areas: expenditures in 2008, historic trends across the budget, historic trends within children’s expenditures, and projections through 2019.