The provided line graph compares the America’s expenditure on Health, Space, Energy, General Science and other unnamed categories from 1980 to 2008.
Overall, it can be seen that the majority of the US’ spending was allocated to research for health, while General Science received the least funding throughout the period.
Starting at above $7 billions in 1980, the government expenditure on research into Health slightly dropped in the next 4 years before shooting up to the all-time high of around $21 billions in 2004. Despite a significant decline until 2008, spending on Health was still by far the highest. In contrast, the money allocated for General Science was the lowest of the five research categories, beginning at below $5 million in the first year, steadily climb up to $5 millions in 2008.
Regarding the remaining research fields, there was also a boost in the money that was spent on Energy and Space research, from just over $5 millions and $6millions in 1980 to around $7 billions and $8 billions in 2008. Meanwhile, other unknown research field suffer a decrease for the majority of the time frame, from about $7 millions in 1980 fell down to just slightly higher than $5 million in 2008.