US Budget Financial Data For Understanding The US Debt Problem

Some key US financial numbers to help a reader understand the magnitude of the US debt problem.

Below is 2010 data excerpted from the US budget data summary tables from the complete US FY 2011 budget document:

• Total 2010 US government receipts are $2.2 trillion (about $1 trillion is from US income tax).


• Total 2010 US government outlays are $3.7 trillion.


• Total 2010 US government deficit is $1.5 trillion.


• Total 2010 US debt held by the public is $9.3 trillion.


• Total 2010 US debt is about $14 trillion, including US debt held by other US government agencies.


• Total 2010 US GDP is $14.6 trillion.

Other miscellaneous budget data from various sources follows.

• State and local government total receipts for 2010 are about $2.4 trillion.

Also, there are outside the budget future US government dollar payment commitments not included in the yearly budget, sometimes known as off balance sheet or unfunded liabilities. These items are future Medicare and Social Security payments, US government guarantees and other US government payment commitments, such as federal employee pensions, etc.

• Future Medicare and Social Security payments are estimated to be around $60 trillion.

Total US payment commitments in unfunded liabilities is estimated from various unofficial sources as over $100 trillion. The accuracy of this later number is unknown, but there is some dollar amount that should be added to future payment commitments for Social Security and Medicare to include these other US government commitments.

Other US budget documents and data is available here.