U.S. Still Paying Civil War Benefits

If you’re worried about how much the U.S. is spending on the wars we’re currently fighting, bad news: we’re still paying for the ones that are over. A child of a Civil War veteran in Tennessee and another in North Carolina are still receiving $876 a year in benefits. Ten people in the U.S. are receiving an average of $5,000 a year connected to the Spanish-American War, which took place in 1898. The payouts are among the $40 billion that are annually awarded by the U.S. government to soldiers and survivors of wars and their families. There’s another $20 billion paid out to survivors of WWI and their families, $5 billion connected to WWII, and $22 billion a year connected to the Vietnam War. The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq combined are already costing about $12 billion a year in benefits.