Where Does One U.S. Tax Dollar Go?

 A common refrain is: "What do my taxes even pay for?" To answer that question, we visualized U.S. federal government spending by function, referencing expenditure to a single federal tax dollar.

Total spending amounts are converted to cents on the dollar and percentages, to show where one tax dollar goes.

Major Areas of U.S. Government Spending Social security is the government's single largest expense and where 22% of tax dollars go.

However, an aging population threatens its sustainability because as more people retire and draw benefits, there are fewer active workers contributing to the system.

Government Spending	Amount Paid Out of $1 Tax Dollar
Social Security	$0.22
Health	$0.14
Medicare	$0.14
National Defense	$0.13
Income Security	$0.13
Net Interest	$0.11
Veterans' Benefits & Services	$0.05
Transportation	$0.02
Commerce	$0.02
Other	$0.04

Medicare, on the other hand, is federal health insurance for people 65 and older, as well as younger people with disabilities.

National Defense accounts for 13% of government spending.

While fourth in terms of percentage spending, this still contributes to the largest military budget in the world-by quite a margin.

Just behind-and still well-ahead of all other government spending-is Interest Payments on government debt, coming in at about 11% of tax supported expenditure.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/where-does-one-u-s-tax-dollar-go/