As of September 2024, the US national debt is $34.3 trillion. This is 4% higher than in September 2023 and up 27% from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Per-person debt (dividing the total debt by the US population) has increased at an average rate of 5% per year since 2001. As of 2023 (the most recent population data) the federal debt was equivalent to $102,000 per person.
But let’s talk about this zig-zaggy chart:
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), broadly speaking, is a measure of the value of an economy. Analyzing the debt in context of GDP makes it easier to track the debt alongside changes in economy and inflation, allowing for comparisons of the debt over time. It can also indicate a country’s ability to repay its debt.
In the US, debt as a percentage of GDP first surpassed 100% in Q4 2012. It remained relatively stable until Q2 of 2020, when it decreased while spending increased. It reached 133% of GDP by the end of Q3. As of Q2 2024, the debt as a percentage of GDP was 120%.
This is a great visualization. It’s neat to see that largely, the debt to GDP ratio is unchanged since the 90’s, unless there is an event which causes it to go up, and then it levels off at that new ratio until there is another event that causes it to go up and then stabilize.
Yup, the pandemic happened.
I may not be the only one that’s been living on credit since being laid off.
I’d rather see the line pointing the other direction for a few reasons, but let’s use a household as an anecdotal analogy. It’s not perfect, but it’s somewhat helpful to think about a double income couple pulling in $300,000 per year with $500,000 in mortgage for their home. Nobody would call them crazy for doing that. The caveats of course are: the mortgage is secured by an asset and the federal debt is backed by its ability to generate revenue, oh yeah and it can print money and change monetary policy. So while it’s not apples to apples, it does help me sleep a little better at night to use this analogy.
Makes me wonder what the debt would be at if the Clinton era surplus was permanent.
Debt goes up when there’s an economic crisis – which is probably an ok thing to happen and the point of being able to do debt spending. But then the problem seems to be that we don’t reduce the debt during the prosperous years. I think the root cause is that there’s no political incentive for the party in power to do this.
A ton of effort was taken to ensure the Great Recession didn’t become the Great Depression and well you can see the impact here taking on massive debt, one of the biggest jumps and we’ve never been able to recover from it since. And even the smartest people in the world have no idea how to pay off trillions in debt, the only ideas people have is to keep boosting GDP so it doesn’t seem so bad but that’s created even more problems. Fun times for us.
Clinton the only sustained decrease. Biden managed a shorter one.
![The US National Debt vs. GDP [OC]](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ia7elqawvree1-1920x1024.png)
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As of September 2024, the US national debt is $34.3 trillion. This is 4% higher than in September 2023 and up 27% from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Per-person debt (dividing the total debt by the US population) has increased at an average rate of 5% per year since 2001. As of 2023 (the most recent population data) the federal debt was equivalent to $102,000 per person.
But let’s talk about this zig-zaggy chart:
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), broadly speaking, is a measure of the value of an economy. Analyzing the debt in context of GDP makes it easier to track the debt alongside changes in economy and inflation, allowing for comparisons of the debt over time. It can also indicate a country’s ability to repay its debt.
In the US, debt as a percentage of GDP first surpassed 100% in Q4 2012. It remained relatively stable until Q2 of 2020, when it decreased while spending increased. It reached 133% of GDP by the end of Q3. As of Q2 2024, the debt as a percentage of GDP was 120%.
More data and interactive charts [here](https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-debt-does-the-us-have/country/united-states/).
Source: [St. Louis Fed](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S)
Tools: Illustrator
If you want to get real in the weeds with government spending, we have more data and interactive charts [here](https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-debt-does-the-us-have/country/united-states/), and we published a new government spending Sankey chart (coming soon to Reddit, but it’s massive and fitting it into one image is posing some challenges) that you can check out [here](https://usafacts.org/government-spending/).
This is a great visualization. It’s neat to see that largely, the debt to GDP ratio is unchanged since the 90’s, unless there is an event which causes it to go up, and then it levels off at that new ratio until there is another event that causes it to go up and then stabilize.
Yup, the pandemic happened.
I may not be the only one that’s been living on credit since being laid off.
I’d rather see the line pointing the other direction for a few reasons, but let’s use a household as an anecdotal analogy. It’s not perfect, but it’s somewhat helpful to think about a double income couple pulling in $300,000 per year with $500,000 in mortgage for their home. Nobody would call them crazy for doing that. The caveats of course are: the mortgage is secured by an asset and the federal debt is backed by its ability to generate revenue, oh yeah and it can print money and change monetary policy. So while it’s not apples to apples, it does help me sleep a little better at night to use this analogy.
Makes me wonder what the debt would be at if the Clinton era surplus was permanent.
Debt goes up when there’s an economic crisis – which is probably an ok thing to happen and the point of being able to do debt spending. But then the problem seems to be that we don’t reduce the debt during the prosperous years. I think the root cause is that there’s no political incentive for the party in power to do this.
A ton of effort was taken to ensure the Great Recession didn’t become the Great Depression and well you can see the impact here taking on massive debt, one of the biggest jumps and we’ve never been able to recover from it since. And even the smartest people in the world have no idea how to pay off trillions in debt, the only ideas people have is to keep boosting GDP so it doesn’t seem so bad but that’s created even more problems. Fun times for us.
Clinton the only sustained decrease. Biden managed a shorter one.
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