The U.S. Treasury said government debt has surpassed $40 trillion for the first time in history, amid warnings of mounting financial pressures as social security program costs and interest payments rise.
The latest daily statement of cash and debt balances issued by the U.S. Treasury Department showed that total public debt reached $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, exceeding the $40 trillion mark for the first time.
The figure includes $32.266 trillion of debt held by the public, along with $7.782 trillion of government debt within government-affiliated institutions and agencies.
This means that the US federal debt has more than doubled in less than a decade, after reaching $19.95 trillion when Donald Trump first took office in January 2017.
About a third of the increase came during two years of heavy government borrowing to finance measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic under Trump and former President Joe Biden, while the remainder was related to the two presidents' fiscal policies, as well as chronic imbalances between government revenues and spending.
Since Trump returned to the White House for a second term in January 2025, the US debt has increased by about $3.8 trillion, bringing the total increase during his two terms to about $11.6 trillion.
Under Biden, the national debt rose by about $8.4 trillion, also driven by pandemic recovery spending programs, along with large investments in infrastructure, clean energy and other programs.
The Commission on a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan organization, estimates that the fiscal policies adopted by Trump and Biden have pushed the federal debt trajectory to higher levels than it would have reached had the fiscal laws in place when each of them took office remained in place.
