U.S. military spending breakdown history

The share of military spending in the “personnel” category has dropped from around 40% in the early 70’s to around 20% today. The category that has grown most through that period has been “operations and maintenance”.

Data source: Historical Tables Budget of the U.S. Government, Office of Management and Budget, Table 3.2—Outlays by Function and Subfunction: 1962–2014. The transition quarter in 1976 was omitted as well as the year 1991 in which the “other” category was -$46 billion (in most years it is on the order of +/-$2 billion).

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