Come tax season, a common refrain is: “what do my taxes even pay for?”
To answer that question, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized U.S. federal government spending by function, referencing expenditure to a single federal tax dollar.
Social security is the government’s single largest expense and where 22% of tax dollars go. Signed into law in 1935, the program was to insure against the “hazards and vicissitudes of life.” In practice, it meant the creation of a work-related contributory system in which workers secure their own retirement by taxes paid while employed.
However, an aging population threatens its sustainability because as more people retire and draw benefits, there are fewer active workers contributing to the system.
Hellbound and Down 