Americans Greatly Overestimate Foreign Assistance Spending
Opinion polls in 2019 show that Americans believed foreign assistance spending accounted for almost a quarter of the U.S. federal budget. In fact, assistance spending was less than 1 percent that year.
This dual pie chart shows American's perceived foreign aid spending as a percent of the federal budget in 2019, versus the actual assistance spending that same year. The opinion poll shows that Americans greatly overestimate the federal foreign assistance spending.
