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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.
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The federal government’s per-person spending for a family of four is virtually the same as the median household income in 2024, according to Open The Books. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“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 Books, the Department of Agriculture recommends spending between $12,000 and $20,000 annually on groceries for a family of four, while the average mortgage payment in 2025 is just under $28,000, according to Rocket Mortgage.
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Graphic created by Open The Books shows how much federal per capita spending has increased since 1916. (Open The Books)
During the early part of Donald Trump’s first term, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began to take shape, Open The Books also worked to keep track of all the savings that the Musk-led group created. Ultimately, DOGE’s cuts were but a drop in the bucket compared to how much the government forks over each year in mandatory spending for programs like Medicare and Social Security, Open The Books found.
While DOGE helped scoop up discretionary spending savings totaling approximately $150 billion, and congressional Republicans’ passed a July rescission package saving around $9 billion, spending for Medicare in 2024 totaled around $912 billion, while Social Security got $1.5 trillion.
Meanwhile, another recent report from Open The Books illustrated how government spending has increased at a much faster rate than it has grown. For example, staffing levels at the Department of Education have decreased since 2000, but the agency’s spending has grown by 749%, according to Open The Books.
Graphs show numbers from the Department of Education uncovered by Open The Books. At the department, since 2000, the number of staff has gone down but the agency’s spending has increased nearly 8-fold. (Open The Books)
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“Much of the spending growth is now predestined as Americans are forced to service an extraordinary national debt. But taxpayers should also scrutinize all aspects of federal spending,” Open The Books wrote in their per-capita spending report.
“Has quality of life, affordability, or innovation improved along with per capita spending? Aside from interest, what else is the government buying that it wasn’t before, back when we were building ourselves into a global superpower? Open the Books will spend 2026 continuing to expose waste, fraud and abuse wherever it exists and pushing for real-time transparency for taxpayers. Put simply, they deserve more bang for their buck.”
