In the document published by the Ministry of Finance, the column “total public debt” indicates the amount of $30.012 trillion. This is the highest level of US government debt ever.
According to The New York Times, the current values were reached several years earlier than expected. This was the result of the trillions in federal spending the United States has sent to fight the pandemic, including $5 trillion in expanded unemployment benefits, small business bailouts, and borrowed-money-funded stimulus payments.
With the number of COVID-19 cases declining in the first half of 2021, the US economy experienced a sharp recovery in GDP growth: 6.3% in the first quarter and 6.7% in the second. However, growth slowed to 2.3% in the third quarter. Experts attributed this to the spread of the Omicron strain, high inflation (by the end of December 2021, it reached 6.8% – the highest since 1982) and problems in global supply chains.
