Americans continue to overestimate the amount of funding that the U.S. government allots to foreign aid, notes Joel Paque, deputy director of policy at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, on the basis of a recently released poll by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes. The survey also suggests that most Americans would back a much higher U.S. foreign aid spending than the actual figure.

A new poll shows Americans continue to vastly overestimate the amount of foreign assistance given by the United States. Conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, the November poll finds the median estimate of the percentage of the federal budget most Americans think is spent on foreign aid is 25%. When you ask Americans how much would be appropriate to spend on foreign assistance, the median response is 10%. In fact, only a little over 1% of the federal budget currently goes to foreign assistance.

The overestimation of our foreign assistance holds true across the political spectrum. Those who identified as Republicans overestimated our foreign assistance somewhat less, with the mean response of 20%, while the mean response from those who identified as Democrats and Independents was 25%. When asked how much of the budget should go to foreign aid, the mean for Republicans was 5%, whereas for Democrats and Independents it was 10%.