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Abstract
Federal Expenditures on Infants and Toddlers in 2007 looks comprehensively at federal spending and tax expenditures targeted toward infants and toddlers. This appendix details our data sources, the programs we include, and the methodology used to estimate the percentage of federal expenditures that went to infants and toddlers in 2007.
Introduction
This data appendix expands on the appendix created by Gillian Reynolds, Adam Carasso, Tracy
Vericker, Jenifer Macomber, Elizabeth Bell, Rebecca L. Clark, Rosalind Berkowitz King,
Christopher Spiro, and C. Eugene Steuerle in support of 'Kids' Share 2008: How Children Fare
in the Federal Budget," a report published by the Urban Institute in 2008. Authors of Kids' Share
2008 compiled the appendix to detail the specific data collection and analysis procedures
involved in estimating the share of the federal budget spent on children. Building on their work,
this appendix provides the relevant aspects of the "Kids' Share 2008" methodology and outlines
the methodology used in our analysis to determine the share of federal expenditures on infants
and toddlers in 2007.
Although Kids' Share 2008 evaluates federal expenditures on all children dating back to 1960,
"Federal Expenditures on Infants and Toddlers in 2007" focuses solely on 2007 federal
spending. In particular, we use fiscal year (FY) 2007 program-specific spending estimates
provided in Kids' Share 2008 and apply an infants and toddlers multiplier to calculate the
amount of federal dollars each program devotes to children age 0—2. In a few cases, we adjust the
estimate provided in Kids' Share 2008 to more accurately capture federal spending devoted to all
children.
Below, we first provide a general overview of the data sources and methodology behind the
Kids' Share 2008 report, which provides the 2007 federal spending estimates on all children. We
then outline the general methodology used to calculate the infants and toddlers multiplier which
we apply to the 2007 program estimates of spending on all children. Finally, we describe each
program included in our analysis, divided by program category (e.g., health, income security,
etc.). Each program description includes the specific data and methodology used to generate the
Kids' Share 2008 estimate of spending on all children, along with the data and methodology
applied to generate the infants and toddlers multiplier.
Kids' Share 2008 Data Sources and Methodology
The primary data source used in Kids? Share 2008 is the Budget of the United States
Government, Fiscal Year 2009 and past years dating back to 1960. For most of the 100 or so
major children's programs examined, expenditure data are taken from the budget for the second
fiscal year after the desired year to get an actual expenditure amount rather than an estimate—for
example, using the FY 2009 budget to get the actual expenditure for 2007. Kids' Share 2008
draws heavily from the Appendix to the Federal Budget, one of the annual budget volumes, for
individual program expenditure data. In most cases, the budget provides outlays for the
individual programs. In cases where a single outlay figure is given for a group of programs of
interest, the authors assumed that the relationship between outlays (the amount spent) and
obligations (the amount appropriated) is the same for all programs within a group: the obligation
figure for the individual program was multiplied by the total outlay figure for the group and then
divided by the total obligation figure.1 The authors also had to look elsewhere when a program
was not broken out as a line-item that year but was lumped in with other programs.
Alternative sources for historical data on expenditures, programmatic scope, and beneficiaries
served included the "Green Book," published every few years by the U.S. House of
Representatives Ways and Means Committee, and the Annual Statistical Supplement to the
Social Security Bulletin, published by the Social Security Administration. When multipliers
(used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children age 0—18) were
necessary, information on recipients usually came from the Green Book or the Annual Statistical
Supplement.
When even these sources did not provide sufficient information, the authors contacted the federal
agencies that administered the programs in question. The Annual Statistical Supplement provides
the names of contacts, as does Serving America's Youth: A Directory of HHS Programs,
published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Additionally, the
authors used the federal yellow pages and contacts from within the Urban Institute. Expenditure
and multiplier data for some programs, such as Medicaid, were provided by Urban Institute staff
who are experts on these programs.
Much of the quantitative effort in Kids' Share 2008 went to estimating the portions of programs,
such as food stamps, Medicaid, or Supplemental Security Income, that go just to children when
individual breakouts of program expenditures on children were not available. Estimates were
easiest to generate for 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1993. The authors were able to obtain federal
budgets from 1967 on, and the Green Books usually provided information from 1970 or 1975 on.
The Annual Statistical Supplement also provided historical data, usually for several decades. But
many agencies did not begin to collect detailed program data on beneficiaries by age group until
relatively recently. Programs have also changed names and departments over the years, which
adds to the challenge of tracking them over time. Fortunately for our 1960 estimates, most of
these programs did not exist until the mid-1960s.
Most programs directed at children define a child as an individual who is under age 19. Some
programs include 19-year-olds who have not yet graduated from high school, but the authors felt
that this inclusion would not significantly affect the estimates. Kids' Share 2008 specifically
excludes all higher education programs, even if some of these funds go to those under the age of
19. When a program included 19- to 21-year-olds, the authors made adjustments to eliminate
them from the estimates if an age breakdown of participants was available. For a few programs
(noted in the descriptions), no age breakdown was available, so these adjustments could not be
made. For programs directed at all ages, the authors obtained at minimum, a breakout of youth
versus adult and were usually able to include only those under age 19. Again, exceptions are
noted.
For projections of outlay and tax expenditure programs from 2008 to 2018—and sometimes for
recent years, such as 2004—2006, when federal budget data were not available at the needed level
of detail—the authors relied on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) Budget and Economic
Outlook, FY 2008—18 and updated baseline projections from its An Analysis of the President's
Budgetary Proposals for Fiscal Year 2009; the FY 2009 federal budget, and the Department of
the Treasury's General Explanation of the Administration's FY 2009 Revenue Proposals. The
authors also employed their own assumptions.
Federal Expenditures on Infants and Toddlers in 2007 Data Sources and Methodology
To calculate the multipliers for determining the share of spending in each program on infants and
toddlers, we first had to define infants and toddlers. For this report, we define this population as
residents of the United States between 0 and 2, focusing on expenditures beginning after the
child is born. We considered expanding the definition to include federal coverage of prenatal
care. Such expenditures undoubtedly benefit children, and many analysts are beginning to define
"early childhood" as the period spanning "prenatal to five." However, one can also argue for a
clean conceptual definition distinguishing costs spent on infants once they are born and are part
of the infant and toddler population. Indeed, we were pushed toward this choice by data
constraints. Our Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) data sources
do not allow us to easily capture spending that is linked to the mother's health record as opposed
to the infant's health record, and thus we are missing the vast majority of federal spending on
prenatal, birth, and postpartum costs. For consistency's sake, we also excluded $890 million in
spending on pregnant and postpartum women from the Supplemental Nutrition for Women,
Infants, and Children (WIC) program, the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, and three
smaller programs.2
Next, to calculate the multipliers, we gathered program-level data (when available) to estimate
the percent of program funding devoted to children age 0—2 as a percentage of estimated
spending on children 0—18. However, many of the data sources used to determine spending on
children overall (cited above) do not break down spending into detailed age groups, so we often
had to ask agency staff or in-house experts within the Urban Institute to produce specialized
tabulations by age of program-level data. Where we could not find program-level data, we relied
on the surveys such as Current Population Survey—sometimes augmented through the Urban
Institute's Transfer Income Model (TRIM)—to estimate the age of children receiving benefits.
When data were sufficiently detailed, we used total program dollars devoted to infants and
toddlers to construct the share of spending on infants and toddlers, a percentage we refer to as
the infants and toddlers multiplier. In this manner, we are able to take into account not only the
share of recipients who are infants and toddlers, but also how much their average benefits are
higher or lower when compared to those of older children. Medicaid and child care spending and
tax programs are examples of programs where our estimates are significantly higher (and more
accurate) because we took into account the higher expenses incurred by infants, as well as their
share in the recipient population. In some cases however, due to the lack of detailed
programmatic data, the number of infants and toddlers that are program recipients was used for
the multiplier. For example, our estimate of child support enforcement (CSE) expenditures
benefiting children 0—2 relies on counts of children, based on estimates from the Current
Population Survey, without adjustment for possible differences in CSE expenditures per capita
by age. We also used a number of other approaches, tailored to specific programs. In the case of
both Head Start and Education for the Handicapped, budgetary reports explicitly split out
spending on children under 3, through the Early Head Start program and Early Intervention Part
C programs, respectively. Additionally, in other cases, such as Adoption Assistance and
Immunizations, we relied on custom-built models and other resources to generate our multiplier
estimate. Finally, for some smaller programs without data on spending or recipients by age, we
simply assumed that spending on children was distributed equally among all ages of children
(e.g., Family Preservation and Support, Community Services Block Grant, Children's
Emergency Medical Services).
Next we describe the specific calculations and data sources for each multiplier. The program
descriptions and all web addresses cited in this document are current as of January 2009.
(End of excerpt. The entire report is available in pdf format.)
Federal Expenditures on Infants and Toddlers in 2007 (Full Report)
Federal Expenditures on Infants and Toddlers in 2007 Key Facts
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