U.S. citizens are bombarded on a daily basis regarding the current state of the American economy. The statistics are not only depressing, they are downright scary. The U.S. has been in debt as far back as the 1800s and the current debt statistic is an astounding 13 trillion dollars.
When government spending exceeds the revenue received from taxpayers, the country issues U.S. Treasury securities. The public, or national, debt is the sum of all of the outstanding securities. The national debt figure is usually presented as two separate calculations: the gross debt that includes intra-governmental obligations and the debt held by the public, which encompasses the U.S. Treasury securities that are held by non-U.S. government institutions.
There is a United States debt clock accessible online that provides figures pertaining to the amount of U.S. national debt, federal spending, federal budget deficit, and other statistics. The current national debt figure equates to $42,356 per U.S. citizen. The debt held by the public is now about 88.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), or market value of the goods and services made within the U.S. This figure is expected to reach 100.6 percent by the year 2012.
Since fiscal year 2003, the total U.S. debt has increased more than $500 billion annually. In FY2008, it increased one trillion dollars and it saw an increase of $1.9 trillion in FY 2009. Since October 2007, the national debt has increased $4.03 billion daily, on average. The U.S. increased its debt ceiling to a whopping $14.3 trillion in February 2010. This allows the U.S. Treasury to sell debt by auction as necessary to fund government operations, until the figure reaches the debt ceiling amount.
The majority of U.S Treasury securities are owned by the Federal Reserve and intra-governmental holdings. The next largest amount is owned by foreign and international entities. These figures combined represent 77.27 percent of the total national debt. A high debt level can affect things such as economic growth, interest rates, and inflation.
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