WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The United States national debt reached a new historical milestone as it topped $31 trillion for the first time in history, Treasury Department data showed on Tuesday.
According to the data, as of Monday, the total outstanding US national debt has reached $31,123,887,781,401,34. It includes $4.3 trillion in debt held by the public and $6.8 trillion in intergovernmental holdings.
The new record-high comes after the debt level rose above $30 trillion for the first time in February 2022, reaching $30.012 trillion as government spending surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic. This means that one trillion added up to the debt in just 8 months.
US national debt has been soaring dramatically over the past years: in 2009, it totaled around $10.6 trillion, but by the time Donald Trump took office in 2017, it had risen to almost $20 trillion.
