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 2 · Interest rates
When has the Treasury yield curve been inverted?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
The yield curve is inverted when short-term Treasury rates are higher than long-term ones: lending to the government for 2 years pays more a year than lending for 10. On this chart that is anything below zero. In October 2026 the 10-year rate minus the 2-year rate was 0.39 percentage points. Through mid-2026, the longest inversion in these monthly averages lasted 26 months, from July 2022 to August 2024, and the deepest was in March 1980, when the 2-year rate was 2.13 points higher. Inversions have tended to come after the Federal Reserve raised short-term rates quickly, while investors expected rates to fall later. The chart starts in June 1976, when the 2-year rate begins.
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: Federal Reserve Board, H.15 Selected Interest Rates (monthly averages) (Public domain (Federal Reserve Board; cite the Board as the source)) · Data as of Oct 31, 2026
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 2 · Federal budget
How big is the federal debt compared with the economy?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
At the end of fiscal 2026 the federal debt was 125% of a year's GDP, everything the U.S. economy produces in a year. It fell from 96% in 1948 to a low of 32% in 1981, passed 100% in 2013 and jumped to 126% in 2020. This is total debt, including what the government owes its own trust funds, divided by GDP over the same fiscal year; it starts in 1948 because BEA's quarterly GDP starts in 1947, and recent GDP figures are revised.
How to read this chart
Each point divides the federal government's total debt by GDP, everything the U.S. economy produces in a year. At 100%, the debt equals one year of the whole economy's output. Comparing debt with the economy's size, instead of in dollars, makes years decades apart fair to compare.
Questions to discuss
- When was the debt smallest compared with the economy, and when was it largest?
- The debt can grow in dollars while this percentage falls. How is that possible?
- Pick a big jump on the chart. What events could make the government borrow much more in a short time?
Source: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (NIPA Table 1.1.5) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Sep 30, 2026
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