According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the current national debt of the U.S. is $31.3 trillion. That’s a huge number, and on a per capita basis, it equates to roughly $94,000 per citizen. How much is the U.S. national debt?
Individuals, however, don’t have to worry about paying off their portion of the national debt. Instead, a percentage of the annual budget is used to service the debt.
Roughly 12% of total government spending for the year, or $48 billion, was employed in maintaining the debt as of October 2022.
The national debt, sometimes referred to as sovereign debt, is money a government owes its creditors. In the U.S., the national debt is almost unimaginably huge: more than $31 trillion and counting.
Americans tend to believe that the U.S. national debt is way too high and even poses an imminent danger to the nation’s solvency. That’s why it plays a starring role in Congressional debt ceiling crises and never-ending debates over taxes and spending.
Debt can take many different forms, from credit card balances and car loans to home mortgages to the $10 you owe your friend for lunch. For companies and individuals, debt is usually the result of spending that exceeds income.
So how does a country build up a national debt? In much the same way as regular people and companies end up in debt. National debt accumulates when a country’s annual spending exceeds its annual revenue, although there are plenty of other factors that impact nations in very different ways than more conventional debtors.
