Public social welfare expenditures, fiscal year 1988.

Expenditures for public social welfare programs in 1988 totaled $885.8 billion, an increase of 6.3 percent over the previous year. That amount was 18.5 percent of the Nation’s output of goods and services, as measured by the gross national product (GNP). The 1988 figures are consistent with the pattern established for such spending in the early 1980’s. The average annual growth rate from 1982 to 1988 was 6.8 percent, with expenditures ranging from 19.5 percent to 18.4 percent of the GNP Social insurance continued to be the largest category of expenditures, accounting for nearly 49 percent of the total; education accounted for 25 percent. The “all health and medical care” category, that includes health expenditures from all of the programs, amounted to one-fourth of the total. The data on health and medical care have been revised in accordance with changes in the National Health Care Expenditures series produced by the Health Care Financing Administration. The categories affected by these changes are “health and medical programs, ” “public aid,” and “all health and medical care.” The net effect of the revisions is a slight lowering of the social welfare totals for all the years covered in this analysis-that is, from 1965 to 1988. The Federal Government provided 60-62 percent of all social kelfare funding from 1980 to 1987. In 1988, this share decreased slightly to 59.1 percent. The social insurance, public aid, veterans’, and housing programs were primarily federally funded; education was largely a State and local responsibility. Governments at all levels allocated 52.8 percent of their funds for social insurance programs and services in 1988, slightly less than the share recorded in 1987. However, Federal spending decreased nearly 1 percent, to 49 percent of all Federal expenditures, while State and local spending remained stable at 60 percent.