What is the Debt?

This page shows National Debt.
National Debt: Strictly speaking, the national debt is the total of federal, state, and local debt.
Also, see Federal Debt, State Debt, Local Debt.

Debts and Deficits

Deficit

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Debt Clock

Today’s Federal Debt is about $16,961,736,917,000.

The amount is the gross federal debt issued by the United States Department of the Treasury since 1790. It doesn’t include state and local debt, and it doesn’t include the so-called unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Federal Debt per person is about $51,982.

Debt Charts also: Spending Charts Revenue Charts Deficit Charts

Total

Federal

State

Local

Recent and Budgeted* US Debt

Debt in billions

Click chart for briefing on Total Government Debt.
For numbers and more click here.

Debt in Percent GDP

Click chart for briefing on Total Government Debt.
For numbers and more click here.

The two charts show above show recent and estimated gross debt issued by all levels of government in the United States. On the left is a chart of the debt in current dollars. On the right is a chart of the debt as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

US Total Government Debt Since 1900

Click chart for briefing on Total Government Debt.
For numbers from 1900-2018 click here.

Government debt began the 20th century at less than 20 percent of GDP. It jerked above 45 percent as a result of World War I and above 70 percent in the depths of the Great Depression. Debt has breached 100 percent of GDP twice since 1900: during World War II and in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008.

Federal, State, Local Debt in 20th Century

Click chart for briefing on Total Debt.
For numbers from 1900-2018 click here.

At the beginning of the 20th century debt was equally divided between federal and state and local debt, totaling less than 20 percent of GDP. After World War I, the total debt surged to 45% of GDP. But by the mid 1920s debt had declined to below 35 percent of GDP. Then came the Great Depression, boosting total public debt to 70 percent of GDP. World War II boosted federal debt to almost 122 percent of GDP in 1946, with state and local debt adding another 7 percent. For the next 35 years successive governments brought the debt below 50 percent of GDP, but President Reagan increased the federal debt up over 50 perent of GDP, and total debt towards 70 perent to win the Cold War. President Bush increased the debt to fight a war on terror and bail out the banks in the crisis of 2008.

There’s much, much more:

Chart and tables of US government spending at usgovernmentspending.com.
Chart and tables of US government revenue at usgovernmentrevenue.com.
Chart and tables of UK government spending at ukpublicspending.co.uk.

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Gross Federal Debt

Debt: $16,961,736,917,000

Data Sources for 2008_2018:

Sources for 2008:

GDP: Measuring Worth - US GDP
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2 and 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances

Sources for 2018:

GDP: Fed. Budget: Hist. Table 10.1
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2 and 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
“Guesstimated” by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

Medicare and Social Security Details

On May 10, 2013, usgovernmentspending.com was updated to provide details of Social Security -- OASI and DI numbers -- and Medicare -- broken down by Part A, Part B, and Part D.

Go here to get details of the Social Security changes on usgovernmentspending.com.

Go here to get details of the Medicare changes on usgovernmentspending.com