摘要
Data sources
Data for 1940-2010 are available from the United States Government at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals archive copy at the Wayback Machine
- Debt (nominal and percentage of GDP): table 7.1
- Deflator (composite outlay deflator): table 1.3 or 10.1
Table description:
- year: fiscal year
- gross federal debt dollars: (nominal) gross federal debt (millions)
- total public dollars: (nominal) federal debt held by the public, ie, net of that held by federal govt (millions)
- deflator: composite outlay deflator (indexed to 2005)
- gross federal debt gdp: gross federal debt over fiscal year GDP (on same nominal/real basis)
- total public gdp: federal debt held by the public over fiscal year GDP (on same nominal/real basis)
Evidence against bias:
- the gross federal debt dollars series agrees well with the Oct, 23 AP report ("U.S. Debt Past $1 Trillion") that the debt first passed 1 Trillion dollars that day.
- The gross federal debt gdp in 2007 is the ratio of the nominal GDP from CIA fact book in 2007 over the nominal debt from table 7.1 in the reference.
Tabled data
This data tabled directly from the source (Presidents FY2012 budget). Note: deflators are applied when graphing in the code below, and it is deflated to the stated year (now 2010).
"year","gross.federal.debt.dollars","total.public.dollars","deflator","gross.federal.debt.gdp","total.public.gdp" 1940,50696,42772,0.0804,52.4,44.2 1941,57531,48223,0.0836,50.4,42.3 1942,79200,67753,0.0936,54.9,47.0 1943,142648,127766,0.1026,79.1,70.9 1944,204079,184796,0.0949,97.6,88.3 1945,260123,235182,0.0905,117.5,106.2 1946,270991,241861,0.0906,121.7,108.6 1947,257149,224339,0.1000,110.3,96.2 1948,252031,216270,0.1058,98.4,84.5 1949,252610,214322,0.1024,93.2,79.1 1950,256853,219023,0.1064,94.1,80.2 1951,255288,214326,0.1047,79.6,66.9 1952,259097,214758,0.1041,74.3,61.6 1953,265963,218383,0.1124,71.3,58.6 1954,270812,224499,0.1163,71.8,59.5 1955,274366,226616,0.1203,69.5,57.4 1956,272693,222156,0.1263,63.8,52.0 1957,272252,219320,0.1327,60.5,48.7 1958,279666,226336,0.1405,60.7,49.2 1959,287465,234701,0.1460,58.5,47.8 1960,290525,236840,0.1466,56.1,45.7 1961,292648,238357,0.1507,55.1,44.9 1962,302928,248010,0.1511,53.4,43.7 1963,310324,253978,0.1579,51.8,42.4 1964,316059,256849,0.1599,49.4,40.1 1965,322318,260778,0.1620,46.9,38.0 1966,328498,263714,0.1658,43.6,35.0 1967,340445,266626,0.1700,41.9,32.8 1968,368685,289545,0.1765,42.5,33.4 1969,365769,278108,0.1881,38.6,29.3 1970,380921,283198,0.1991,37.6,28.0 1971,408176,303037,0.2133,37.8,28.1 1972,435936,322377,0.2283,37.0,27.4 1973,466291,340910,0.2412,35.7,26.1 1974,483893,343699,0.2621,33.6,23.9 1975,541925,394700,0.2889,34.7,25.3 1976,628970,477404,0.3117,36.2,27.5 1977,706398,549104,0.3371,35.8,27.8 1978,776602,607126,0.3588,35.0,27.4 1979,829467,640306,0.3902,33.2,25.6 1980,909041,711923,0.4318,33.3,26.1 1981,994828,789410,0.4789,32.6,25.8 1982,1137315,924575,0.5136,35.2,28.6 1983,1371660,1137268,0.5393,39.9,33.1 1984,1564586,1306975,0.5675,40.7,34.0 1985,1817423,1507260,0.5868,43.9,36.4 1986,2120501,1740623,0.6020,48.1,39.5 1987,2345956,1889753,0.6210,50.5,40.6 1988,2601104,2051616,0.6398,51.9,41.0 1989,2867800,2190716,0.6634,53.1,40.6 1990,3206290,2411558,0.6840,55.9,42.1 1991,3598178,2688999,0.7162,60.7,45.3 1992,4001787,2999737,0.7436,64.1,48.1 1993,4351044,3248396,0.7637,66.1,49.3 1994,4643307,3433065,0.7780,66.6,49.2 1995,4920586,3604378,0.7992,67.0,49.1 1996,5181465,3734073,0.8184,67.1,48.4 1997,5369206,3772344,0.8356,65.4,45.9 1998,5478189,3721099,0.8436,63.2,43.0 1999,5605523,3632363,0.8554,60.9,39.4 2000,5628700,3409804,0.8767,57.3,34.7 2001,5769881,3319615,0.8988,56.4,32.5 2002,6198401,3540427,0.9135,58.8,33.6 2003,6760014,3913443,0.9375,61.6,35.6 2004,7354673,4295544,0.9644,62.9,36.8 2005,7905316,4592229,1.0000,63.6,36.9 2006,8451350,4828972,1.0354,64.0,36.6 2007,8950744,5035129,1.0642,64.6,36.3 2008,9986082,5803050,1.1031,69.7,40.5 2009,11875851,7544707,1.1085,85.2,54.1 2010,13528807,9018941,1.1218,94.2,62.8 2011,14764222,10128206,1.1525,98.7,67.7 2012,16050921,11281131,1.175343,100.1,70.4 2013,16719434,11982713,1.190529,101.2,72.6 2014,17794483,12779899,1.208930,103.3,74.2 2015,18120106,13116692,1.216690,101.2,73.3 2016,19539445,14167725,1.226666,106.1,77.0
July 29, 2021 Comprehensive revision: debt from U.S. Treasury website, GDP and deflators from BEA table, Debt/GDP ratio calculated from foregoing
Program
The image was made with R using the following code after setting the working directory properly.
#setwd("~/") # <- you have to change this to a folder on your computer dat <- read.csv("debt.txt") # <- you have to put the above data as debt.txt in the folder bitmap(file="USDebt.png",type="png256",width=6,height=7,res=300,pointsize=14) par(mfrow=c(2,1)) par(mar=c(2,3.5,0.1,1)) par(las=1) par(yaxs="i") par(mgp=c(2.1,0.6,0)) dat$deflator <- dat$deflator / dat$deflator[dat$year==2010] plot(range(dat$year),range(1.04 * c(0,dat$gross.federal.debt.dollars/dat$deflator/1e6)),type="n",xlab="debt",ylab="debt (trillions of 2010 dollars)",lwd=3) lines(dat$year,dat$gross.federal.debt.dollars/dat$deflator/1e6,lwd=3) lines(dat$year,dat$total.public.dollars/dat$deflator/1e6,type="l",col="red",lwd=3) legend("topleft",lwd=3,col=c("black","red"),legend=c("gross debt","public debt"),bty="n") par(mar=c(2,3.5,0.1,1)) plot(range(dat$year),range(1.04 * c(0,dat$gross.federal.debt.gdp,dat$total.public.gdp)),type="n",xlab="year",ylab="debt as a % of gdp") lines(dat$year,dat$gross.federal.debt.gdp,type="l",lwd=3) lines(dat$year,dat$total.public.gdp,type="l",col="red",lwd=3) dev.off()