The national debt of the United States for the first time exceeded 30 trillion dollars.
A document published by the US Treasury Department in the column "total national debt" shows the amount of 30.012 trillion dollars, which is a record figure for the US national debt for all time of its existence.
According to The New York Times, these figures were reached several years earlier than expected. The surpassing $30 trillion in national debt was the result of federal spending directed by America to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, including five trillion dollars for unemployment benefits, financial support for small businesses and stimulus payments that were financed with borrowed money.
Amid the decline in COVID-19 cases in the first half of last year, the US economy saw a sharp rebound 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 of 2021. According to experts, this is due to the spread of "omicron," high inflation (6.8% - the highest rate since 1982) and problems in global supply chains.
In the final year of Donald Trump's presidency (2020), the United States economy contracted by 3.5%, the first decline since the 2008 financial crisis and the largest since 1946, when the nation's GDP fell by 11.6%.
At the end of the first year of Joe Biden's presidency, the FRS forecasts growth of 5.5%. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the US Cabinet is also forced to take more and more loans - as of the end of 2021, the US national debt was more than $ 29 trillion (about 125% of GDP), forcing the authorities to raise its ceiling to 31.4 trillion dollars.