U.S. Debt per Capita Grows 10x Faster than the Population since 2008

The high borrowing undertaken by the Federal Government in recent years has resulted in the U.S. public burden hitting $34 trillion by the end of 2023, with forecasts seeing a further jump to between $37 trillion and $38 trillion in 2024.

Finbold found that such an accelerated rate of borrowing has resulted in every American, as of 2023, being burdened with $101,000 in debt and that the percapita figure will skyrocket to $109,000 this year.

In fact, the U.S. population during the Great Recession stood at approximately 304 million, with a total Federal debt as high as $10.7 trillion. Such a figure meant that the burden of each American stood at $35,000 – slightly above the average salary at the time.

Since then, the debt – both in absolute and per capita terms – has been growing approximately 10 times faster than the population and significantly quicker than income, meaning that the 2023 government-caused debt of Americans has become substantially higher than the average salary.

The U.S. government borrowing at an accelerating pace since 2020

A particularly concerning element of the data is the recent upward trend in borrowing.

Between the start of the dataset provided by the St. Louis FED – 1966 – and the start of the data analyzed by Finbold – 2008 – U.S. national debt rose from $321 billion to $10.7 trillion, and the population from 191 million to 304 million.