{"chart":{"slug":"federal-spending-by-function","title":"Where does federal spending go?","takeaway":"Social Security was the biggest item in fiscal 2026 at $1.67 trillion, out of $7.4 trillion in total. Next came Medicare ($1.07 trillion), Net Interest ($1.05 trillion), Health ($1.03 trillion) and National Defense ($965 billion). Two accounting lines are below zero, so the bars add up to the total.","topic":"Federal budget","chart_type":"bar","ranking":true,"x_label":"Budget function","y_label":"Outlays in US dollars","unit":"dollars","points_count":19,"source":{"name":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9)","url":"https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/monthly-treasury-statement/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work)","url":"https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright"},"data_as_of":"2026-09-30","updated_at":"2026-10-17T18:50:40.974Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/federal-spending-by-function","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function/embed","credit":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function)","credit_html":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"Social Security","value":1667097265194},{"label":"Medicare","value":1072626018869},{"label":"Net Interest","value":1051753969311},{"label":"Health","value":1025587234576},{"label":"National Defense","value":965160356821},{"label":"Income Security","value":694224470394},{"label":"Veterans Benefits and Services","value":416204104590},{"label":"Transportation","value":142864249326},{"label":"Administration of Justice","value":109915442479},{"label":"Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services","value":107551403356},{"label":"Community and Regional Development","value":62429584486},{"label":"Natural Resources and Environment","value":57098136028},{"label":"Agriculture","value":52566167744},{"label":"International Affairs","value":48014568338},{"label":"General Science, Space, and Technology","value":39876759074},{"label":"General Government","value":32343463388},{"label":"Energy","value":20970860009},{"label":"Commerce and Housing Credit","value":-15465292146},{"label":"Undistributed Offsetting Receipts","value":-155018778526}],"annotations":[]},"docs":"https://chart.ly/developers","terms":"Free to use with credit: wherever you show or quote a chart's data, name Chartly with a link to that chart's url (each chart's credit line does both) and credit its source as its license asks.","credit":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-function)"}