The national debt of the United States is the total amount of outstanding borrowing by the U.S. Federal Government accumulated over the nations history. It is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the United States to Treasury security holders. The national debt at any point in time is the face value of the then-outstanding Treasury securities that have been issued by the Treasury and other federal agencies. The terms "national deficit" and "national surplus" usually refer to the federal government budget balance from year to year, not the cumulative amount of debt. As of September 2023, the national debt of the United States is $33.47 trillion.
Here are some additional facts about the US national debt:
- The national debt was up to $80,885 per person as of 2020.
- The national debt equated to $59,143 per person U.S. population.
- The U.S. national debt to GDP ratio surpassed 100% in 2013 when both debt and GDP were approximately $16.7 (~$19.4 trillion in 2021) trillion.
- The federal government is charged interest for the use of lenders’ money, in the same way that lenders charge an individual interest for a car loan or mortgage. How much the government pays in interest depends on the total national debt and the various securities’ interest rates.
- Interest expenses during the past ten years have remained fairly stable due to low interest rates and investors’ judgement that the U.S. Government has a very low risk of default. However, recent increases in interest rates and inflation are now resulting in an increase in interest expense.
- When interest rates remain low over time, interest expense on the debt paid by the federal government will remain stable, even as the federal debt increases. As interest rates increase, the cost of maintaining the national debt also increases.
- The national debt is made up of borrowing along with the interest owed to investors who purchased Treasury securities.
- The U.S. has carried debt since it was founded. In fact, the U.S. accumulated more than $75 million in debt during the Revolutionary War, and that increased to greater than $2 billion by the end of the Civil War in 1865.
- For several years, the nation’s debt has been bigger than its gross domestic product (GDP), which was $26.13 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2022. Debt-to-GDP is a useful metric for analyzing the debt over long time spans, as it puts the debt into relative terms by comparing it against the size of the national economy.
