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.

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.