Debt Rises $1 Trillion Over One Month

For Immediate Release

The national debt has grown by more than $1 trillion over the past month, from $17.5 trillion on March 17th to $18.5 trillion on April 17th. Debt held by the public rose $293 billion in the last week alone. Below is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

We entered the current coronavirus crisis borrowing $1 trillion per year, but never thought we would be borrowing $1 trillion per month.

In some sense, the recent surge of borrowing is an encouraging sign that we are getting economic relief out quickly. But it also shows just how fiscally unprepared we were for this emergency, and how important it will be to both track these dollars and address the national debt once we get past this crisis.

While today’s high deficits are needed to combat the current crisis, they are by no means free. We recently projected that debt will exceed the size of the economy this year and hit new record levels not long after. Sooner or later, that bill will come due.

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For more information, please contact John Buhl, director of media relations, at buhl@crfb.org.