Understanding America's role in NATO

In 2008, NATO members agreed that Ukraine would join the organization in the future, but there was and is no timeline for its membership. Since Russia's invasion two weeks ago, Ukraine has called for NATO to set up a no-fly zone. The organization rejected the request. 

NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has become an integral part of discussions about the war in Ukraine. The United States and 29 other nations including the United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada, are NATO members, each giving at least 2% of their gross domestic product to help fund it. USAFacts has history and data on this alliance in this new report.

• Member countries contribute to NATO's common fund based on the size of their economy. Last year's budget was $3.1 billion and covered administrative costs and collective military infrastructure. One example of a common fund project: $360 million for warehousing US military vehicles, tanks, and artillery at a Polish Air Force base. 
   
• NATO's common fund is small compared to members' defense spending. The United States' NATO defense spending grew 3% from $710 billion to $730 billion between 2014 and 2019. During that same period, defense spending for all other NATO countries increased from $251.4 billion (a recent low) to $301.8 billion.  

Learn more about the member nations and the NATO response force here.   


Numbers behind the State of the Union 

In his first official State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden focused first on Russia's invasion of Ukraine (learn more about past aid to Ukraine here) before pivoting to his agenda at home. For metrics behind the issues in the speech, see our State of the Union in Numbers. Some of the night's most-talked topics included:

• Biden touted how the economy created jobs amid the pandemic, but what does the government's own record say about US employment? The economy added 6.7 million jobs last year, rebounding from 9.3 million lost jobs in 2020. Learn more here. 
   
• Biden called for raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. What can $15 an hour buy? See the numbers by state in this article. For more on Americans' wages last year, see these standard of living visuals.
   
• When addressing lowering the price of drugs, Biden pointed to the cost of insulin, but medication is just one healthcare cost facing millions of Americans. Personal healthcare spending was $3.4 trillion in 2020, up 4.5% from 2019. 

• The president also noted that he would be back to ask Congress for more coronavirus funding. What that ask will look like remains to be seen, but you can track the last two years of federal spending — and more — with the State of the Union in Numbers.

Steve Ballmer on the Numbers Geek podcast

USAFacts Founder Steve Ballmer recently talked with GeekWire's Todd Bishop about the State of the Union and measuring the nation's progress over the past few years. Hear them discuss a V-shaped recovery, investing in research and development, and more, on the Numbers Geek podcast.


One last fact