$40 Trillion Warning For US

Aug 23, 2026 | 21:16 IST

America isn’t going to plunge into a crisis because of its huge, fast-growing debt. But it may slow-walk into one

Last week America’s gross national debt ticked past $40,000,000,000,000. That’s a dollar a second that you’d need over a million years to clear – which nobody intends to do, and nobody has to. That isn’t the problem. It took just five months to add the last trillion, and the interest is now real money.

Purists will note the headline oversells it – $7.8tn is money govt owes itself. Strip it out and $32.3tn is owed to outside holders, roughly US’s annual output, with CBO (Congressional Budget Office) expecting it to breach the post-war record of 106% of GDP within a few years.

TOI

TOI

$40 Trillion Warning For US

America isn’t going to plunge into a crisis because of its huge, fast-growing debt. But it may slow-walk into one

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TOI

$40 Trillion Warning For US

America isn’t going to plunge into a crisis because of its huge, fast-growing debt. But it may slow-walk into one

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