Methodology

The analysis presented in the 'Why Debt Matters' section draws heavily from the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) Long-Term Budget Outlook report. Specific data points are sourced from the downloadable data file (budget.xlsx), particularly from Supplemental Table 2.

Gross Federal Debt as Percent of GDP

Historical data represents Federal Debt Held by the Public as Percent of Gross Domestic Product, sourced directly from FRED (FRED: GFDEGDQ188S). This series is calculated quarterly. The 2024 value is sourced from the U.S. Treasury's Fiscal Data guide.

Federal Expenditures and Receipts

Overall expenditure and receipt data are retrieved from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database, originally sourced from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) National Income and Product Accounts `Table 3.2` (Government Current Receipts and Expenditures, reported quarterly).

• Spending data corresponds to Federal Government Current Expenditures (FRED: FGEXPND).
• Revenue data corresponds to Federal Government Current Receipts (FRED: FGRECPT).
• Inflation Adjustment: Adjusted to the dollars of the latest available period in the series using the U.S. GDP implicit price deflator (FRED: GDPDEF) sourced from BEA.
• Percent of GDP: Calculated using quarterly Gross Domestic Product data (FRED: GDP) sourced from BEA.

National Debt

• Data sourced from the U.S. Department of the Treasury—titled “Federal Debt: Total Public Debt” (FRED: GFDEBTN).
• Inflation Adjustment: Adjusted to the dollars of the latest available period in the data series with the U.S. GDP implicit price deflator (FRED: GDPDEF) sourced from BEA.
• Per Capita Calculation: Derived from the above data and divided by U.S. population (FRED: B230RC0Q173SBEA) data sourced from BEA.
• Percent of GDP Calculation: Calculated using quarterly Gross Domestic Product data (FRED: GDP) sourced from BEA.

Who Holds U.S. Debt

Data is primarily sourced from the U.S. Department of Treasury.

• Federal Reserve Banks: Federal debt held by Federal Reserve banks. Data sourced from Treasury (FRED: FDHBFRBN).
• Foreign Entities: Federal debt held by foreign investors. Data sourced from Treasury (FRED: FDHBFIN).
• U.S. Public: Calculated by subtracting debt held by “Federal Reserve Banks” (FRED: FDHBFRBN) and “Foreign Entities” (FRED: FDHBFIN) from “Federal Debt Held by the Public” (FRED: FYGFDPUN), sourced from Treasury.
• Agencies & Trusts: Federal debt held by agencies and trusts. Data sourced from Treasury (FRED: FDHBATN).
• Inflation Adjustment: All data series above are inflation-adjusted to the dollars of the latest available period in the data series with the U.S. GDP implicit price deflator (FRED: GDPDEF).
• Percent of GDP Calculation: Calculated using quarterly Gross Domestic Product data (FRED: GDP) sourced from BEA.

Foreign Holdings of U.S. Debt

• Data is retrieved from the US Treasury Department’s Major Foreign Holders of U.S. Treasury Securities historic tables.
• Note: Aggregations below certain thresholds may result in missing data for certain years for some countries.
• Adjustments: Each country's holding is inflation-adjusted to the dollars of the latest available period in the data series using the U.S. GDP implicit price deflator (FRED: GDPDEF) and then divided by the U.S. GDP (FRED: GDP) to determine the percent of GDP.

Federal Outlays by Category

Data for federal outlays by category is sourced from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Historical Tables, specifically Table 3.2—Outlays by Function and Subfunction: 1962–2029. Categories are grouped based on the standard federal budget functions.

Interest on Debt

Net government saving data is sourced from the Bureau of Economic Analysis via FRED (FRED: A180RC1Q027SBEA). This represents the interest paid by the government on its debt.

• Inflation Adjustment: Data is adjusted to the dollars of the latest available period in the data series using the U.S. GDP implicit price deflator (FRED: GDPDEF).
• Percent of GDP Calculation: Calculated using quarterly Gross Domestic Product data (FRED: GDP).

Average Interest Rate

The average interest rate on federal debt is sourced from the U.S. Treasury's Average Interest Rates on U.S. Treasury Securities dataset. Specifically, the data is filtered for the "Interest-bearing debt" security type, and the "Average Interest Rate Amount" is used for the visualization.

Foreign Aid and Intervention

Data for Foreign Aid and Intervention is primarily sourced from ForeignAssistance.gov, specifically looking at disbursement data. The specific figure for aid to Ukraine is tracked by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy's Ukraine Support Tracker.

The DOGE (Dollar Outlay Guestimator Engine) Calculator utilizes federal outlay data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Historical Tables, specifically Table 3.2—Outlays by Function and Subfunction: 1962–2029. It calculates the estimated cost per taxpayer for various government functions based on the total outlays and the estimated number of taxpayers.