The federal government increased spending on children’s programs in the last year, but these programs will have a tough time winning a bigger share of the federal pie in the future, a new report says.

Without the 2009 economic stimulus package, federal children’s programs would have received a smaller share of the overall federal budget, First Focus’s report, Children’s Budget 2010, found.

“Unless Congress makes children a higher priority, these programs will be forced to scale back to pre-2009 levels,” the group’s president, Bruce Lesley, said in a statement.

The report was one of two released this month that forecasted a rough budget outlook for children’s programs in coming year. Another report also found the federal share of spending on children’s programs has been falling for decades.

The reportshows that over the longer term, ten-year projections reveal an overall decline in federal spending on children. The report explains that if current law continues unchanged, the federal budget will grow as a whole, but a smaller share of the budget will be directed to children.

“In addition, Kids’ Share 2010 reveals that since 1960, the children’s share of the federal budget has diminished by a quarter, while spending on the non-child portions of entitlement programs has more than doubled.” – Kids' Share 2010: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children Through 2009.

Both reports are worth a read.