The Power Law of Farm Subsidies: Most Get Little, Few Get Millions
Most top recipients fall in the $2M–$5M range over 9 years
| Range | Recipients | % of Recipients | Total Amount | % of Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1M-$2M | 199 | 10% | $386.5M | 4.7% |
| $2M-$5M | 1,525 | 76.3% | $4.4B | 53.9% |
| $5M-$10M | 199 | 10% | $1.3B | 15.9% |
| $10M-$25M | 53 | 2.6% | $776.0M | 9.4% |
| $25M-$50M | 17 | 0.9% | $587.6M | 7.1% |
| $50M-$100M | 6 | 0.3% | $393.6M | 4.8% |
| $100M+ | 1 | 0.1% | $346.6M | 4.2% |
Distribution of top 2,000 recipients. Most of 31.8M total payments are much smaller.
The Inequality Paradox
Farm subsidies were originally designed to protect small family farms from price volatility and natural disasters. But the distribution tells a different story: a classic power law where the bulk of money flows upward to the largest operations.
The average payment ($4,623) is 2.5 times the median ($1,847) — a clear sign of right-skew in the distribution. While millions of small payments go to individual farmers for modest amounts, a handful of recipients at the top collect payments exceeding $1 million. The top 10% of recipients by payment size account for roughly 70% of all subsidy dollars.
This isn't necessarily intentional — larger farms produce more, so production-linked programs naturally pay them more. But it raises the question: should taxpayer-funded subsidies be structured to primarily benefit operations that may not need the support?
For deeper analysis, see The 10% Problem and our top recipients database.