The US gross national debt has surpassed $31 trillion and is set to climb higher. According to the US Treasury Department report published on October 3, 2022, the total outstanding public debt has reached a whopping $31.12 trillion for the first time since the record started in 1993. Back then, the national debt stood at $4.3 trillion and has been steadily rising ever since. This amount is made up of intragovernmental holdings ($6.82 trillion) and debt held by the public ($24.29 trillion). Notably, the debt ceiling approved by the Biden administration in 2021 was $31.4 trillion. Federal borrowings have been growing since February 2022, breaching the milestone figure of $30 trillion. Earlier, The New York Times reported that the pace of debt increase exceeded expectations by several years due to COVID-19 spending. In May this year, the Congressional Budget Office warned that if debt levels increased, investors could lose confidence in the US government. This, in turn, would drive interest rates up and fuel already high inflation. For your reference, US inflation topped 9% in June 2022, hitting an all-time high in many decades. Then, consumer prices slowed down to 8.5% in July and to 8.3% in August.
