How big is the federal debt compared with the economy?

At the end of fiscal 2025 the federal debt was 124% 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.

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Key facts

Measure: Debt as % of GDP. Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2025, is 123.5%.
  • That is up 27.2 percentage points from 96.3% in 1948.
  • The highest was 126.3% in 2020.
  • The lowest was 31.8% in 1981.

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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

  1. When was the debt smallest compared with the economy, and when was it largest?
  2. The debt can grow in dollars while this percentage falls. How is that possible?
  3. Pick a big jump on the chart. What events could make the government borrow much more in a short time?

Source and date

Source
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (NIPA Table 1.1.5)
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How big is the federal debt compared with the economy?” Chart. Data: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (NIPA Table 1.1.5), https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/ (data as of September 30, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/us-debt-as-share-of-gdp (accessed October 18, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

Fiscal year Debt as % of GDP
1948 96.3
1949 91.4
1950 92.3
1951 78
1952 72.6
1953 69.6
1954 70.1
1955 67.5
1956 62.2
1957 58.4
1958 58.4
1959 56.4
1960 53.6
1961 52.9
1962 50.9
1963 49.5
1964 47.1
1965 44.7
1966 41
1967 39
1968 38.7
1969 36.1
1970 35.4
1971 35.7
1972 35.1
1973 33.9
1974 32
1975 33.2
1976 34.7
1977 34.5
1978 33.9
1979 32.2
1980 32.5
1981 31.8
1982 34.5
1983 38.9
1984 39.8
1985 42.7
1986 47
1987 49.3
1988 50.6
1989 51.4
1990 54.8
1991 60.2
1992 63.3
1993 65.1
1994 65.4
1995 65.8
1996 65.7
1997 64.1
1998 61.9
1999 59.7
2000 56.1
2001 55.2
2002 57.5
2003 60.1
2004 61.3
2005 61.8
2006 62.4
2007 63
2008 67.8
2009 82.3
2010 91.1
2011 95.6
2012 99.7
2013 100.3
2014 102.3
2015 99.9
2016 105
2017 104.5
2018 105.3
2019 106.7
2020 126.3
2021 123.3
2022 120.9
2023 121
2024 122.2
2025 123.5

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