Nuclear Weapons Community Cost Calculator

Tax Season is here. Do you know how much you spend on Nuclear Weapons?

Nuclear weapons threaten us every moment of every day. The threat is higher now than at any point since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 80 years ago. While most reasonable individuals recognize that these weapons cannot and must not ever be used, approximately 12,331 weapons remain in the nuclear arsenals of the world. We also know that the use of even a tiny fraction of these weapons over a single populated region would cause catastrophic climate change, resulting in a global famine that would potentially put 2 billion people at risk. These weapons also threaten us by robbing our communities of precious resources that could be redirected to the many needs that our communities cry out for.

Every April, Dr. Bob Dodge, Board Co-President, calculates the full cost of all nuclear weapons programs to our communities.

For FY 2025 (Tax Year 2024), the total U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs expenditure was $110,344,000,000!

  • The Nuclear Weapons Cost Program attempts to determine the full cost of all nuclear weapons programs to our communities. There have been many excellent calculations of portions of our nuclear weapons costs, including the ICAN report on global costs.

    These reports deal primarily with the cost of warheads and delivery systems development alone in an attempt to compare one nation to another. In our report, we include verifiable costs of all nuclear programs that would not be spent if nuclear weapons did not exist.

    This includes funding the nuclear missile defense system, environmental cleanup, and legacy programs dealing with communities that have been contaminated by the mining, development, testing, and stockpiling of these weapons.

    Also included is nuclear nonproliferation funding and funding to safeguard and sequester nuclear weapons in Russia and the former Soviet Union States.

    Determining the full cost of U.S. nuclear weapons programs is a tedious process as the United States is not fully transparent in these figures. We have chosen to list only figures that we can provide reference to.

    In 2013, with the release of the “Black Budget” by Edward Snowden, it was estimated that there were some $9 billion in “top secret” nuclear operations that were never publicly released. That year the U.S. “Black Budget” was $52.6 Billion. This year’s U.S. Intelligence Committee “Black Budget” is in excess of $73.4 billion.

    While likely still being funded it has become impossible to track nuclear expenditures, and thus, there is no inclusion herein. 

  • This fiscal year finds our nation facing challenges with an administration that is disrupting many established institutions designed to promote the health, safety and wellbeing of our people when so many still struggle just to make ends meet. The effects of these cuts are felt especially in economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color. The very existence of nuclear weapons is an economic, environmental, social, and racial justice issue.

    As our country struggles with these realities, it is our hope that this project will provide assistance to communities across our nation attempting to address these inequities together.

    For FY 2025 (Tax Year 2024), the total U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs expenditure was $110,344,000,000! 

    Los Angeles County spent $3,240,840,663 and Los Angeles City spent $1,324,982,723.

    Below, you’ll find a table with FY 2025 tax costs for major cities throughout the United States.

Table Legend:

NAE- National Average Expense
POP- Population
PCI- Per Captial Income (local)
FI- Federal Income (per capita)
PCIM- Per Capita Income Modifer (local)
PCNT- Per Capita ‘Nuclear Tax’
NE- Nuclear Expense (local)

We invite your comments and questions about our program. Email Denise Duffield at dduffield@psr-la.org.