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The nation's
balance sheet.
Debt is one number.
The economy is a bigger story.
Explore 53 measures across public finances, households and the economy. Every figure has a source. Every observation has a date.
Explore a question Explore the full registerGathering official observations. Independent sources may take a moment.
Gross U.S. national debt
Waiting for an official balance
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Waiting for Treasury. No balance substituted.
The headline illustrates growth between refreshes. Charts and register use published observations.
- Per citizen derived
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- Debt / GDP derived
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- Average change / second historical rate
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Follow the numbers
Debt over time
Explore a question
Real history will appear here as sources respond.
Select a measure to inspect its history.
The chart uses published observations. No forecast points or animated estimates.
Sources, calculation & data table
9 perspectives
The full register.
53 measures. Select any row to explore its history.
No measures match. Try a broader term.
Read the fine print
A window into
public data.
Official data arrives on different schedules. A daily debt balance, quarterly GDP and a fiscal-year deficit describe different periods.
“Derived” means calculated from dated inputs. “Stale” means a source failed to refresh or its observation is older than this dashboard's cadence threshold. “Unavailable” means we have no valid observation. Historical series remain historical.
Source availability
Contacting U.S. Treasury, FRED and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
How to read this dashboard
Money uses the stated dollar basis: nominal U.S. dollars unless explicitly labeled real. Real weekly earnings use 1982–84 purchasing power, and each price index retains its own base period. Indexes are not dollar prices and different bases cannot be compared directly. Annual rates are labeled and are not monthly spending. Negative surplus/deficit figures follow the source's sign convention; derived deficit per citizen uses spending minus receipts.
Observation dates for monthly, quarterly and annual data identify a period, not the date of publication. Most ratio histories pair each observation with the latest input dated at or before it. Interest as a share of fiscal receipts instead requires identical fiscal-year dates; they are calculated using today's revised source history, not a real-time vintage archive.
Per-person views divide by dated population observations. A national balance divided by population is context, not an individual obligation. Charts show actual returned coverage, up to six years; debt subject to limit currently covers up to one year. Lines connect observations without inventing intermediate data.
Data is cached for six hours. Manual refresh is limited to one upstream round per minute. Only the clearly labeled headline estimate ticks, using running time since refresh; pausing excludes paused time. The dated official balance, charts and register stay unchanged between source updates. This is an informational data explorer, not financial advice.