Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 1 · Federal budget
How much federal debt is there per American?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
In fiscal 2025 the federal debt came to about $110,100 for every person in the US, up from $33,000 in 2008 and $1,585 in 1960. It is the debt at the end of each fiscal year divided by the World Bank's mid-year population estimate, not adjusted for inflation. It starts in 1960, the first year of the World Bank's population figures.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; population from the World Bank (SP.POP.TOTL) (Debt data public domain (U.S. government work); World Bank population data CC BY 4.0) · Data as of Sep 30, 2025
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