Military spending per armed forces personnel

Relative to its personnel, the United States spends much more on its military than other major countries.

The chart shows data on military spending per service member, sometimes called a military’s “capital intensity”.

We calculated this metric by dividing spending data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) by data on personnel from multiple sources via the World Bank.

This indicator reflects differences in salaries and benefits for military personnel and more advanced and costly weaponry.

In 2020, the United States spent well over half a million dollars per service member. This was 50% more than the United Kingdom, more than double Germany’s spending per personnel, about six times China’s, and more than twenty times that of Brazil or India.

(This Daily Data Insight was written by Bastian Herre and Pablo Arriagada.)