Two new reports reveal short-term gains, long-term challenges for children’s programs in the federal budget
First Focus releases Children's Budget 2010
7/16/2010
Two new reports released this week reveal boosts in federal spending on children during 2009 and 2010 were largely due to the stimulus legislation known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Without that additional one-time spending, the share of spending on children’s programs would have actually declined over the past five years.
Children’s Budget 2010
is the latest edition of the Children’s Budget series by America's Promise Alliance policy affiliate, First Focus. The book provides an analysis of the over 180 federally funded programs that are aimed at enhancing the well-being of our nation’s children, and how their appropriations levels have changed over the past five years. The book was published by First Focus with the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The report was released before more than 200 children’s advocates who joined leading U.S. Senators, White House staff, and prominent public opinion experts at the second national First Focus Children’s Budget Summit, which took place July 14 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
According to the report, programs benefiting from the significant additional ARRA resources will face a difficult budget situation when stimulus funding ends.
“While the short-term picture for children in the budget indicates improvements and an important hiatus from the previous years of decreased spending on children, it is critical to note that projections for long-term spending on kids look quite poor,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, the bipartisan children’s advocacy group that published the report. “Unless Congress makes children a higher priority, these programs will be forced to scale back to pre-2009 levels.”
Kids’ Share 2010: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2009
, an Urban Institute-Brookings Institution report also released at the Children’s Budget Summit, is the fourth annual examination of the federal spending trends and tax policies that support and affect children and families. The report was commissioned by First Focus and produced by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
This year’s report finds that less than one-tenth of the federal budget was spent on children in 2009 -- $334 billion out of a total of $3.5 trillion in outlays. Kids’ Share indicates that over the longer term, ten-year projections reveal an overall decline in federal spending on children. The report explains that if current law continues unchanged, the federal budget will grow as a whole, but a smaller share of the budget will be directed to children.
“Since we first began tracking children’s spending four years ago, it has declined as a percent of domestic outlays,” said Kids’ Share co-author Eugene Steuerle, an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute. “Despite a temporary boost in dollars as part of the recovery act, funding for children continues to face an uphill battle in the face of other budgetary pressures. Out of the additional $1 trillion in outlays projected between now and 2020, only about 3 percent is expected to support children’s programs. Children have a vital stake in the budget and in budget reform, and it is crucial that we continue to track how they are doing.”
Kids’ Share 2010 reveals that since 1960, the children’s share of the federal budget has diminished by a quarter, while spending on the non-child portions of entitlement programs has more than doubled.
“Federal spending on children increased in 2009 as the federal government tried to meet the increased needs of families hard-hit by the recession,” said Julia Isaacs, co-author of the report and Child and Family Policy Fellow at the Brookings Institution.“However, much of the increase in federal spending substituted for spending cuts in states and localities.”
First Focus is a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. First Focus takes a unique approach to children’s advocacy, engaging both traditional and non-traditional partners in a broad range of efforts to increase federal investments in programs that address the needs of our nation’s children. In all of our work, we seek to raise awareness regarding public policies impacting children and families and to ensure that related programs have the resources necessary to help children grow up in a healthy and nurturing environment. To learn more, visit www.firstfocus.net.