Administrative Expenditures and Federal Matching Rates of Selected Support Programs

The federal government spends billions of dollars annually for programs that help low-income families and other individuals. A significant portion of these funds cover administrative costs rather than direct benefits and services. To provide information on how these administrative costs compare across programs and the federal government's role in funding these programs' administrative costs, we examined (1) total funding and the amounts and types of administrative expenditures for selected programs and (2) the federal matching rates for these administrative expenditures.