<P> The programs vary in eligibility requirements and are provided by various organizations on a federal, state, local and private level . They help to provide food, shelter, education, healthcare and money to U.S. citizens through primary and secondary education, subsidies of college education, unemployment disability insurance, subsidies for eligible low - wage workers, subsidies for housing, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, pensions for eligible persons and health insurance programs that cover public employees . The Social Security system is sometimes considered to be a social aid program and has some characteristics of such programs, but unlike these programs, social security was designed as a self - funded security blanket--so that as the payee pays in (during working years), they are pre-paying for the payments they'll receive back out of the system when they are no longer working . Medicare is another prominent program, among other healthcare provisions such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program . </P> <P> Not including Social Security and Medicare, Congress allocated almost $717 billion in federal funds in 2010 plus $210 billion was allocated in state funds ($927 billion total) for means tested welfare programs in the United States, of which half was for medical care and roughly 40% for cash, food and housing assistance . Some of these programs include funding for public schools, job training, SSI benefits and medicaid . As of 2011, the public social spending - to - GDP ratio in the United States was below the OECD average . Roughly half of this welfare assistance, or $462 billion went to families with children, most of which are headed by single parents . </P> <P> Total Social Security and Medicare expenditures in 2013 were $1.3 trillion, 8.4% of the $16.3 trillion GNP (2013) and 37% of the total Federal expenditure budget of $3.684 trillion . </P> <P> In addition to government expenditures, private welfare spending, i.e. social insurance programs provided to workers by employers, in the United States is estimated to be about 10% of the U.S. GDP or another $1.6 trillion, according to 2013 OECD estimates . In 2001, Jacob Hacker estimated that public and private social welfare expenditures constituted 21% and 13--14% of the United States' GDP respectively . In these estimates of private social welfare expenditures, Hacker included mandatory private provisions (less than 1% of GDP), subsidized and / or regulated private provisions (9--10% of GDP), and purely private provisions (3--4% of GDP). </P>

How much money does the united states spend on welfare
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