The U.S. government’s gross national debt has crossed the $37 trillion threshold for the first time in American history.
The Treasury Department’s latest daily financial report confirmed this historic high on August 12, revealing that the debt reached $37,004,817,625,842.56.
This moment arrives years ahead of pre-pandemic projections, as the Congressional Budget Office’s January 2020 estimates had forecast gross federal debt would not eclipse $37 trillion until after fiscal year 2030. Instead, a combination of COVID-19 emergency spending, recent tax legislation, and structural fiscal imbalances has accelerated the debt accumulation.
The pace at which the United States is adding to its national debt has reached historic proportions. The country hit $34 trillion in January 2024, $35 trillion in July 2024, and $36 trillion in November 2024. Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said the nation is now adding approximately $1 trillion to the debt every five months, more than twice as fast as the average rate over the past 25 years.
““During a time of economic growth, it is highly irresponsible to run deficits this large, currently approximately 7% of GDP,” Peterson wrote. “At this pace, we will run through the recent $5 trillion debt limit increase — the largest in history — in just two years. We are no longer in a great recession or a global pandemic, but our fiscal policy keeps acting like we are.
“Our growing debt slowly damages our economy and the prospects of the next generation. As the government borrows trillion after trillion, it puts upward pressure on interest rates, adding costs for everyone and reducing private sector investment. Within the federal budget, the debt crowds out important priorities and creates a damaging cycle of more borrowing, more interest costs, and even more borrowing.
According to the Joint Economic Committee’s analysis, at the current average daily rate of growth, another trillion dollars will be added to the debt in approximately 173 days. Over the past year, the debt has increased at an average rate of $5.13 billion per day, $213.61 million per hour, $3.56 million per minute, or $59,335.23 per second.
The debt surge has been further exacerbated by President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” signed into law on July 4, 2025. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this legislation will add $4.1 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. If temporary provisions within the bill are made permanent, the total cost could reach $5 trillion.
The U.S. national debt now exceeds the combined economies of the entire Eurozone and China. All three major credit rating agencies have issued downgrades to U.S. creditworthiness, with international lenders closely monitoring America’s fiscal trajectory.