11 January, 2021

US Public Debt Rises By 20% Within a Year Surpassing GDP by 30%

 




Data presented by Bankr indicates that the United States public debt has grown by 19.59% within a year. The growth was recorded from December 2019 to December 2020.

Public debt spikes amid a pandemic

As of December 2020, the pubic debt was $27.74 trillion while in 2019 it stood at $23.2 trillion while in January the figure was at $23.22 trillion.

In February, the debt was at $23.4 trillion. The debt began spiking from March at $23.68 trillion and grew to $24.97 trillion as of April, as the federal government started spending hundreds of billions of dollars on mitigating the pandemic’s effects. The pandemic and the economic collapse led to a historic run of government borrowing in trillions of dollars for stimulus payments, unemployment insurance expansions, and loans to keep small businesses and big companies afloat.

As of May, the debt was at $25.74 trillion and grew by 2.8% to $26.47 trillion. In July, the figure was at $26.52 trillion, while in August there was a slight growth to $26.72 trillion.

In September the U.S. national debt was at $26.94 trillion before growing to $27.13 trillion in October while November stood at $27.44 trillion.

The research highlights some of the implications of the rising U.S. public debt to the country’s economy. According to the research:

"On the flip side, the high public debt to GDP ratio poses a great risk to the U.S. economy. The debt could absorb much of investors’ money that other borrowers would have trouble raising cash at affordable rates. Additionally, if the debt continues to rise more than the GDP, there might be a depressed economic output; more interest payments flowing out of the U.S. to foreign debt holders. It will consequently increase the risk of a fiscal crisis where investors will raise interest rates and demand to fund the debt."

The full story, statistics and information can be found here: https://bankr.nl/us-public-debt-rises-by-20-within-a-year-surpassing-gdp-by-30/

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