Topic · 2 stories
Economy
Heard the trillions in every speech and wondered how worried to be? These pages size the debt and the deficits against the whole economy, so the big numbers mean something.
Debt
How big is the national debt, really?
You've heard the trillions and wondered how worried to be. The measure that means something is the debt against the whole economy - and here's where it stands against the wartime record, plus your share of it.
Updates daily Read →Trade
Why does America buy more than it sells?
The trade deficit is back in every speech - but is buying more than you sell ruinous, or just how America shops? Every month of it since 1992, and what a deficit does and doesn't mean for you.
Updates monthly Read →Where this data comes from
All of our data comes from live, free government and independent research sources - the US Energy Information Administration's weekly and monthly surveys, and consumer-price data via FRED. Every story links its own further reading, so you can always dig deeper than we did.