A Computer Scientist Looks at the World: Dollars per Person

Politicians and newscasters often throw around amounts in the billions and trillions of dollars when they talk about government expenditures and taxes. The numbers are so large that I can’t really appreciate what they mean. I have often thought that it would be helpful if they would express those numbers as an amount per person in the U.S. population.

I have taken a number of published expenditure and tax numbers and expressed them in an amount per person. I have assumed that the population of the United States is 300 million (the estimate is 294, 444,215 in July 2006) and divided these numbers by 300 million to get a per person approximation.

To orient you a little bit, an expenditure of $1 billion is about $3 per person, and an expenditure of $1 trillion is about $3,000 per person.

You might think that it is unrealistic to use the total population in the calculation. You might want to use only the number of employed people. That number was about 150 million in July 2006. If you want to use that number, just multiply our numbers by 2.

You might want to use the number of people between 16 and 64, thus eliminating children and retired people. That number is about 200 million in 2005. If you want to use that number, just multiply our numbers by 1.5.

You might want to use the number of families instead of the number of people. The average family size in 2005 was about 3.2 people. If you want to use the number of families, just multiply our numbers by 3.

I intend to continually add more items to this list. Any suggestions would be appreciated. (Please include source.)

Description	Total Amount	Amount Per Person

2007 U.S Budget

Total Receipts	$2.4 trillion	$ 8,000 per person
Selected Receipts
Individual Income Tax	$1.1 trillion	$ 3,700 per person
Corporate Income Tax	$261 billion	$ 870 per person
Social Security Tax	$884 billion	$ 2,900 per person
Estate Tax	$24 billion	$ 80 per person

Total Expenditures	$2.8 trillion	$ 9,300 per person
Selected Expenditures
Social Security	$586 billion	$ 2,000 per person
Defense	$466 billion	$ 1,600 per person
Medicare	$395 billion	$ 1,300 per person
Welfare	$367 billion	$ 1,200 per person
Medicaid	$276 billion	$ 917 per person
Interest on National Debt	$243 billion	$ 810 per person
Science	$25 billion	$ 83 per person
Energy	$1.1 billion	$ 4 per person

Expected Deficit	$354 billion	$ 1,180 per person


Gross Domestic Product (2005)	$12.5 trillion	$42,000 per person

Personal Income (2005)	$10.5 trillion	$35,000 per person

Consumer Debt (thru June 2006)	$2.2 trillion	$ 7,300 per person
Credit Card Debt (2005)	$800 billion	$ 2,600 per person

Retirement Assets (thru 2005)	$14.5 trillion	$48,000 per person

Health Care Expenditures (2004)	$1.9 trillion	$6,280 per person

Household Real Estate Value (2006)	$18.7 trillion	$62,000 per person
Real Estate Loans	$7.7 trillion	$26,000 per person
Real Estate Equity	$11 trillion	$36,000 per person

Holiday Spending (2005)	438.6 billion	$1,462 per person

National Debt (thru August 2006)	$8.5 trillion	$28,000 per person

Cost of Iraq War (thru August 2006)	$308 billion	$ 1,000 per person

Trade Deficit (in 2005)	$725 billion	$ 2,400 per person

Total R&D Expenditures (2004)	$312 billion	$ 1,000 per person