Every April, Dr. Bob Dodge, Co-President of the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles (Back from the Brink’s sponsoring organization), calculates the full cost of all nuclear weapons programs to our communities.

For the 2025 tax year, the total U.S. nuclear weapons programs expenditure was $137,230,000,000. That’s more than 137 BILLION DOLLARS.

It’s also a 24% increase from the previous year, which came from an uptick in Department of Defense nuclear spending and funding for President Trump’s “Golden Dome” project, which many experts say will never fully protect us and could eventually cost several trillion dollars.

At a time when affordability is top of mind for millions of people across the country — when families are struggling with the rising costs of housing, healthcare, and basic necessities — our tax dollars continue to fund weapons that must never be used.

And in this moment of war and heightened global tension, all of this unnecessary spending on nuclear weapons does not make us safer. It only increases the risk of catastrophic escalation while diverting resources away from the things that actually improve and sustain our lives.

Here’s the cost breakdown for some major cities across the U.S.:

• Austin – $561 million
• Chicago – $1.2 billion
• Los Angeles – $1.6 billion
• New York City – $3.9 billion
• Seattle – $604 million