Kids' Share 2007: Data Appendix

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Abstract

"Kids' Share 2007: How Children Fare in the Federal Budget" tracks trends in federal spending on children from 1960 to 2017 by analyzing over 100 programs through which the federal government spends on children. This appendix lists our data sources, describes each program, and explains the methodology used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children.

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Introduction

This data appendix updates and expands the appendix created by Rebecca L. Clark, Rosalind Berkowitz King, Christopher Spiro, and C. Eugene Steuerle in support of "Federal Expenditures on Children: 1960–1997," Assessing the New Federalism Occasional Paper Number 45 published by the Urban Institute, 2000.

"Kids' Share 2007: How Children Fare in the Federal Budget" tracks trends in federal spending on children from 1960 through 2017. The primary data source used is the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2008 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—e.g., using the FY 2008 budget to get the actual expenditure for 2006—since the budget for a given year includes estimates for that year and the previous year and actual data for earlier years. We draw heavily from the Appendix to the Federal Budget, one of the annual budget volumes, for expenditure data for individual programs. In most cases, the budget provides outlays for individual programs. In cases where a single outlay figure is given for a group of programs of interest, we 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. We 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 Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives 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) were necessary, information on recipients usually came from the Green Book or the Annual Statistical Supplement to the Social Security Bulletin.

When even these sources did not provide sufficient information, we 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 HHS. We also 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 this report went to estimating the portions of programs, like 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. We were able to obtain federal budgets back through 1967, and the Green Books usually provided information back through 1970 or 1975. 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 19. Some include 19 year olds who have not yet graduated high school, but we felt that this would not significantly affect the estimates. Our analysis specifically excludes all higher education programs, even if some of these funds go to those under 19. When a program included 19 to 21 year old individuals, we made adjustments to eliminate the 19 to 21 year old individuals from our 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, we obtained at minimum a breakout of youth versus adult, and were usually able to narrow it to only those under 19. Again, exceptions are noted.

For projections of outlay and tax expenditure programs from 2006 to 2017—and sometimes for recent years like 2004-06, when federal budget data were not available at the needed level of detail—we relied on the Congressional Budget Office's Budget and Economic Outlook, FY 2008-17, the FY 2008 federal budget, and the Department of Treasury's General Explanation of the Administration's FY 2008 Revenue Proposals. We also employed our own assumptions. In the program descriptions that comprise the bulk of this appendix, we list sources for budget figures historically. Section XII explains our methodology for projecting expenditures on children in different categories of outlay and tax expenditure programs and details the particular assumptions we made, by program as necessary.

Finally, all of the web addresses cited in this document were current as of March 2007.

The complete appendix is available in PDF format.

The report "Kids' Share 2007" is available at http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411432.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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