US debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP

[progree]

11. Not true, the national debt passed 100% of GDP in 2012, and is now at about 122.8% of GDP

Last edited Fri May 1, 2026, 07:08 PM - Edit history (2)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S?cid=5
In Q4 2025 it was 122.8% of GDP

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https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
The Debt to the Penny dataset provides information about the total outstanding public debt and is reported each day. Debt to the Penny is made up of intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public, including securities issued by the U.S. Treasury. T

4/29/2026
debt held by the public: $31,264,482,575,337.52
intragovernmental holdings: $7,687,592,673,364.13
total public debt outstanding: $38,952,075,248,701.65

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As for GDP, I can't find the damn page anymore at bea.gov that used to give both the real GDP (i.e. inflation-adjusted) and current-dollar GDP in DOLLARS. It's the current-dollar GDP IN DOLLARS that I'm after, but I can't find either.

But for now, there is this:
https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/gdp-update
Current-dollar GDP: $31.856 Trillion for Q1 2026 update
($31.422 Trillion in Q4 2025)

which about matches "GDP over the last year was $31.22 trillion" in the OP's article from The Hill

Anyway, total public debt outstanding: $38,952,075,248,701.65 divided by Q1 2026 current dollar GDP $31.856 Trillion is 122.3%

The Fred source at the top of this post is the older Q4 2025 number. They apparently don't update until the final estimate is in (that's due May 28).

The intragovernmental holdings are not some wonky accounting item. Those are the trust funds including the Social Security Trust Fund and the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund. I'm not sure about the latter (I just don't have time to look up every goddam thing when I see media bullshit posts, I do have a personal life and responsibilities), but the Social Security trust fund has been drawn down some over the past few years to continue to provide promised S.S. benefits. This process will continue until an estimated 2034 or whatever when the SSTF is estimated to be exhausted (and that's not right-wing scare-seniors bullshit, that's in the Trustee's 2024 report signed by 4 high DEMOCRATIC officials including the then-Secretary of The Treasury Janet Yellen.

I've never seen the national debt conflated with the debt held by the public (and so not including the government's debt to the trust funds, which I take extremely very seriously, otherwise my SS benefits would be getting reduced already).

I will work on getting an official source of current-dollar GDP IN DOLLARS, but I can't get to it today. I've already spent close to an hour looking.

I submitted a webmail to https://www.bea.gov/help/contact-us at about 10 AM EDT today, May 1.

DOGE and other assholes have been reorganizing the pages and reducing the amount of information, in the name of "efficiency". That has wrecked a lot of the links I have been relying on for more than a decade (and telling other people about at http://www.democraticunderground.com/111622439 for more than a decade).

It seems to me that the BEA.gov, which is responsible for the GDP reports, would somewhere, somehow report the GDP figures in DOLLARS, and that would be bare-bones fundamental information that would be easily accessible.

FRED almost certainly has GDP in DOLLARS info too, but I haven't searched them yet. But they are a secondary source (getting their info from BEA.gov in this case), so I still rather get GDP DOLLAR info from the primary source (AND CERTAINLY NOT FROM MEDIA REPORTS)

ETA- yes FRED does

FRED GDP (apparently current-dollar), Q1 2026 31,856.257 Billion$ -- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP
. . . Q4 2025: 31,422.526 Billion $

FRED Real GDP Q1 2026: 24,174.527 Billion $ -- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1

ETA Re: the above, "I submitted a webmail to https://www.bea.gov/help/contact-us at about 10 AM EDT today, May 1."

I got this response about 3 1/2 hours after submitting my request:

Good afternoon. Our GDP and related data can be accessed in our Interactive Data Tables ( https://www.bea.gov/itable/national-gdp-and-personal-income ) , with the option to download a user-defined data range in several formats. Current dollar levels are available in NIPA Tables 1.1.5 and 1.5.5 (greater detail) and real dollar levels are available in Tables 1.1.6 and 1.5.6. Please let us know if you need assistance finding any other specific data set and we will try to direct you to the right reports. Thank you for reaching out to us."

So I clicked on the link above and then on the big orange "Interactive Data Tables" button , and on the page that came up, I clicked on: "Section 1 - Domestic Product And Income" which expanded to include a list of tables, and then I clicked on "Table 1.1.5. Gross Domestic Product (A)(Q), and there it is on the top line. ... 2025 Q4: 31,422.5, 2026 Q1: 31,856.3.

This is the URL of that page, sigh, https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey&_gl=1*15cmsuy*_ga*ODA5NjU0OTA0LjE3NzU3Mzc2NTM.*_ga_J4698JNNFT*czE3Nzc2NzU2NDMkbzckZzEkdDE3Nzc2NzU4NTQkajYwJGwwJGgw#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDNdLCJkYXRhIjpbWyJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIiwiU3VydmV5Il0sWyJOSVBBX1RhYmxlX0xpc3QiLCI1Il1dfQ==

I sent a thank you, I found it with your instructions.

(So it was right there all the time, silly me, and just 5 steps (sarc) )