Budget explainer: has there been a blowout in social security and welfare spending?
- Written by Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

For some time, the largest single component of federal government spending has been social security and welfare. In the last federal budget it made up an estimated 35.2% of total expenses and this was projected to rise to 37.5% by 2019-20. Given this, it’s not surprising that it’s also has been a prominent target for expenditure cuts.
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