Where the federal dollar goes: two agencies move most of it
- Federal agencies committed $5.3 trillion through awards in fiscal 2025, and two of them moved most of it: Health and Human Services ($2.02 trillion) and the Social Security Administration ($1.63 trillion) account for 69 cents of every award dollar.
- Defense, the government's largest contract buyer, is a distant third at $502 billion (9.4 percent). Military and civilian pay are not awards, so the Pentagon's headline budget and its award total are different numbers.
- The mix barely moves in normal years (the top ten agencies have held 95 to 96 percent of award dollars since 2008) and snaps hard in a crisis: SBA awards jumped from under $1 billion to $580 billion in fiscal 2020, Treasury's peaked at $450 billion in 2021, and both fell back within two years.
What's happening
The chart splits US federal award spending by agency for fiscal 2025: every contract, grant, direct payment and loan the government committed, credited to the agency that awarded it. Ten agencies get a named slice; the other hundred or so share the 4 percent sliver marked Other.
Health and Human Services is the largest awarding agency at $2.02 trillion, mostly Medicare, Medicaid and health grants. The Social Security Administration is second at $1.63 trillion of benefit payments. Defense, the agency most people would guess first, awards $502 billion, less than a tenth of the total.
Why benefit programs sit on top
Awards are how benefits legally move. Medicare and Medicaid payments flow as HHS obligations, Social Security checks as SSA direct payments, veterans' benefits through the VA ($288 billion, fourth place). These programs run on formulas set in law, so their totals grow with enrollment and health costs regardless of the year's politics.
The award lens also explains Defense's third place. Awards capture what the Pentagon buys (weapons, fuel, construction, services) but not what it pays its people: military and civilian salaries are payroll, not awards. The same is true government-wide, which is why the $5.3 trillion here is smaller than total federal outlays. Interest on the debt appears nowhere on this chart at all.
When the mix bends
Crises reshape the donut overnight. In fiscal 2020 the Small Business Administration went from under $1 billion of awards to $580 billion as Paycheck Protection Program loans went out, briefly making it the third-largest awarding agency in government. Treasury followed in 2021, peaking at $450 billion with relief payments, and Education briefly tripled to $313 billion with pandemic aid for schools and colleges. By 2024 all three were back near their old scale.
Policy reshapes it more slowly, though not always: the Agency for International Development awarded $30 billion in fiscal 2024 and $13 billion in 2025, the year the agency was dismantled. The lasting story, year over year, is drift toward the benefit programs. Health and Human Services and Social Security together held 65 percent of award dollars in 2008 and 69 percent in 2025, and at today's total each percentage point is roughly $53 billion.
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