Public Investment in Children's Early and Elementary Years (Birth to Age 11)

How government spends money, and who benefits, reveals the priorities. How, then, do children fare in the competition for public resources? While families have long been the primary caregivers of children, all levels of government--local, state, and federal--invest in the growth and development of children, whether through education, family supports, or health and nutrition benefits. Knowing how that money is spent, and whether it is being put to good use, is crucial for creating effective public policy. To track government's investment in children, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution have documented historical, current, and projected levels of federal expenditures across more than 100 programs serving children. More recently, they have looked in-depth to highlight federal investment by age group. Analyses by age allow them to evaluate spending in light of what we know about child development and about policy priorities. They also reveal which federal programs and categories dominate spending for each age group. Federal officials and the interested public may not know which programs spend more or less on different groups of children. As part of these reports, they also integrate estimates of state and local spending from a report by researchers at the Rockefeller Institute. This brief provides an overarching view of investments in children and illuminates critical decision points and questions for policymakers. In this brief, the authors look at public investments "across" age groups, from birth through the elementary years and present the key findings. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.) [Funding for this work was provided by the Strategic Knowledge Fund and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. For "Federal Expenditures on Elementary-Age Children in 2008 (Ages 6 through 11)", see ED509356. For "Federal Expenditures on Pre-Kindergartners and Kindergartners in 2008 (Ages 3 through 5)", see ED509355.]