Household debt to GDP ratio in the U.S. 2014-2022

In the last quarter of 2021, household debt in the United States amounted to nearly 80 percent of its GDP.

Debt to GDP ratio

The household debt to GDP ratio decreased overall in the recent years, going from 90 percent in the first quarter of 2011 to 78 percent in the second quarter of 2021. This tendency could be explained by the steady growth of gross domestic product in the United States. Mortgages, which are the most significant component of the household debt, decreased from 9.72 trillion U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 9.44 trillion U.S. dollars in the third quarter of 2016 in the United States but have rebounded to over 11 trillion U.S. dollars as of the second quarter of 2021.

Public debt in the U.S.

Public debt in the United States, which is the amount of money borrowed by the government to finance budget deficits, increased from year to year and reached over 21 trillion U.S. dollars in 2020. According to the forecast, public debt in the United States will amount to approximately 35 trillion U.S. dollars in 2031. The major holders of American government debt, as of December 2020, were Federal Reserve and government accounts and foreign and international holders. National debt in the United States constituted 134 percent of GDP in 2020. The ratio of national debt to GDP varies significantly on a global scale. The countries with the highest ratios of national debt to GDP in 2020 were, among others, Lybia, Kuwait, and Maldives. The lowest debt to GDP ratios were observed in Macao SAR, Hong Kong SAR and Zimbabwe in the same year.