The graph below gives information about U.S. government spending on research between 1980 and 2008.
The line graph compares a breakdown of government expenditure on research purposes from 1980 to 2008. It is clear that there was a noticeable increase in the amount of funding dedicated to all research areas, with health studies becoming the top priority over the whole period shown. While the outlay on space, energy and general science saw small yet varying degrees of increase, the importance of other unspecified spheres declined.
The money allocated to health studies was by far the highest in 1980, starting at around $8 billion. Over the next four years, it saw a drop of $2 billion in the amount, but the figure then skyrocketed in the following two decades, reaching a whopping $22 billion. However, there was a significant drop in expenses, finishing at around $18 billion.
The remaining categories had increases in their figures with some fluctuations. As for space-related expenditure, the figure started at just around $6 billion, after which it saw a downtick of 1 billion, and then there was a plateau until 1992 before a sharp rise to nearly $10 billion in the last year. With regard to Energy and general science, much less focus was placed on these areas, with merely $5 and $3 billion allocated at first, respectively. There was no to little change to these figures until 1992 but then the former saw a temporary increase to $8 billion before returning to its initial level, and this figure then saw a growth to roughly $7 billion in 2008. The latter, on the other hand, increased consistently till 2000, reaching $5 billion before a levelling out during the rest of the period. The funding for other unspecified areas decreased from $7 billion to $5 billion and then grew at a significant rate until 2000 before declining to $5 billion in the final year.