US national debt passes record $40 trillion

Total debt for the United States has passed $40 trillion for the first time, raising concerns that the country is facing a fiscal crisis as government spending outpaces revenue.

The debt stood at $19.95 trillion in January 2017, when President Donald Trump was sworn in for the first time, and has doubled since then, according to Treasury Department data shared on Wednesday.

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About one-third of that increase occurred during the two years that followed the outbreak of COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic in March 2020. The government, both under Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden, borrowed heavily for the pandemic response.

Since Trump took office a second time in January 2025, the US debt load has increased by $3.8 trillion – contributing to a total debt growth of $11.6 trillion across his two terms so far.

It increased by $8.4 trillion during Biden’s term, on the back of not only pandemic recovery spending but also big-ticket outlays for infrastructure investment, clean energy subsidies and other priorities championed by his Democratic Party.

“Our federal programmes spend much more than the government takes in, and the biggest-ticket items in the federal budget are all running on autopilot,” Margaret Spellings, CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think tank, said last week as the $40 trillion threshold neared.

“Federal debt is already raising the cost of living and choking out other spending and investment, ‌threatening our economy and Americans’ long-term prosperity.”

The $40 trillion figure amounts to about $117,000 in debt per person in the US, and $297,000 per household. It is approximately the combined value of the economies of China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and India, according to the Peter G Peterson Foundation, a think tank based in Washington, DC.

Pandemic spending

The US Treasury last week reported the fourth-highest monthly deficit in US history – $432bn for July – as the Trump administration refunded tariffs that were struck down by the court system.

Those refunds turned customs receipts negative for the third month in a row, and outlays for Social Security and Medicare benefits for seniors continued to grow.

The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal 2026 has already exceeded the total gap for all of fiscal 2025, with two months to go in the current fiscal year.

Trump has largely ignored the dwindling number of fiscal hawks in his Republican Party, championing prolific spending across his two terms.

The nonpartisan Committee for ⁠a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the policy choices of Trump and Biden have increased the federal debt trajectory beyond what would have accumulated under the existing spending statutes when each took office.

For instance, Trump’s landmark second-term legislative package – the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – will add another $4.7 trillion in debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan bookkeeper for federal lawmakers.

Trump, however, has hinged his second presidency on cost-cutting. At the start of his most recent term, he tasked the nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with slashing the federal workforce.

But much of his spending reductions have ‌targeted so-called “discretionary” programmes, the smallest portion of the federal budget.

The US spends roughly $7 trillion annually, and 60 percent of that budget is earmarked for so-called “mandatory” programmes, including payments for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ care, which generally grow to keep pace with living costs.

Another $1.1 trillion pays the interest on US borrowing, the cost of which rises as the debt pile grows and interest rates climb. The 2025 fiscal-year budget marked the first time debt ‌service ‌costs exceeded Pentagon funding.

In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, interest costs have eclipsed Medicare healthcare outlays to become the second-largest line item in the federal budget, behind the Social Security pension system.

The US is spending more to fund the retirement and healthcare costs of the “baby boom” generation, straining the trust funds behind Social Security and Medicare even as payroll and income tax revenues fall short of covering federal costs.