New report reveals federal spending per person has ballooned by nearly 10,000% since 1916
FIRST ON FOX: Although the federal government’s spending on citizens has never been greater, Americans continue to feel the burden of an affordability crisis.Conservative fiscal watchdog group Open The Books,...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: Although the federal government’s spending on citizens has never been greater, Americans continue to feel the burden of an affordability crisis . Conservative fiscal watchdog group Open The Books, which keeps track of various metrics on government growth and spending, identified in their latest report that, since 1916, per capita government spending, or how much money the government spends on average per person in the United States, is 9,800% bigger. In 1916, the government spent an average of $208.36 per person in today's dollars, according to Open The Books. Since then, the fiscal watchdog group says the trend line has gone up "almost uninterrupted" and the current per capita spending by the federal government sits at $20,474.19. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency that provides economic and budgetary analyses, found that in Fiscal Year 2025 the federal government spent a record $7.035 trillion. WHITE HOUSE TURNS UP HEAT ON BIDEN’S ECONOMIC RECORD AS VOTERS SOUR ON ‘AFFORDABILITY’ "While American families and businesses find a way to do more with less, government does less with more," Open The Books CEO John Hart told Fox News Digital. "Today's federal government is 98 times bigger per person than it was just over a century ago. The best affordability and stimulus program imaginable is to reduce the waste, fraud and central planning in government. Every dollar saved in Washington is a dream realized somewhere in America." The government's per capita spending level equals about $82,000 for a family of four. In their report outlining their findings, the group pointed out that this is virtually just as much as the median household income in 2024, which was $83,730. Open The Books also notes that, according to national averages for how much people spend annually on their mortgages and groceries, the government's per capita spending eclipses the average spending on these two basic needs. According to Open The B…