That is more than the annual budget of every individual federal agency except for the Treasury, the Department of Health and Human Services (which manages the Medicare and Medicaid government health insurance programs), and the Department of Defense.
In 2021, the government made $562 billion in interest payments on outstanding debt. The cost of servicing the country's outstanding debt has become a major part of the federal budget as the outstanding debt has grown. debt, with $1.1 trillion, while the United Kingdom was in distant third place, with $622 billion. China was the second-largest holder of U.S. As of the end of November, the most recent data available, Japan was the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, though no country holds more than 5% of the total. The term "public" can be somewhat misleading because the category includes not just the debt instruments held by individual investors but also the debts held by the Federal Reserve, large investment funds and foreign governments.Īccording to the Treasury Department, foreign governments hold about $7.7 trillion in U.S. The far larger portion of the debt is classified as debt held by the public, which amounts to $23.5 trillion. The $30 trillion in outstanding debt is owed to a wide variety of creditors, including the federal government itself.Īccording to the Treasury Department, as of January 31, $6.5 trillion of the national debt was classified as "intragovernmental holdings." This includes Treasury securities held by various agencies of the federal government, most prominently the Social Security Administration, which maintains a trust fund to provide income to senior citizens. Meanwhile, we have the highest inflation rate we've had in 40 years, and there doesn't seem to be any sign that the borrowing is going to let up." "In a decade, it'll be larger than any time since World War II. "Debt held by the public, which is the measure we prefer to use, is about as large as the economy," Goldwein told VOA. Pedestrians pass signs in the window of an Urban Outfitters store advertising a sale, in downtown Seattle, Jan. "Hitting the $30 trillion mark is a reminder of just how high our debt is and just how much we've been borrowing," said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. While the $30 trillion figure, by itself, has no significant meaning, it may serve to focus attention on what some see as a major concern for the future health of the country. Since then, the nation has added more than $2 trillion in further debt. One year later, it had risen by an additional $5 trillion, to $27.7 trillion. economy, greatly accelerated its growth.Īt the end of 2019, prior to the pandemic, the national debt stood at $22.7 trillion. The federal debt has been high and rising for decades, but the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which involved massive infusions of cash into the U.S. one of the most heavily indebted nations in the world. The Treasury Department this week reported that the total national debt of the United States surpassed $30 trillion for the first time in history, an amount equal to nearly 130% of America's yearly economic output, known as gross domestic product.
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