What is the Deficit?

Deficit: The amount by which the government’s total budget outlays exceeds its total receipts for a fiscal year. —US Senate Budget Committee

This year, FY 2015, the federal government in its latest budget has estimated that the deficit will be $564 billion.

Recent US Federal Deficit Numbers

Although the federal deficit is the amount each year by which federal outlays in the federal budget exceed federal receipts, the gross federal debt increases each year by substantially more than the amount of the deficit each year. That is because a substantial amount of federal borrowing is not counted in the budget. See here.

Note:

* Federal Deficit is budgeted.
† Some people have emailed to insist that the FY 2009 deficit should be assigned to Obama. But conventional wisdom maintains that the deficit in the first year of a president’s first term belongs to his predecessor.

  Deficits and Debts

But there’s more

The federal debt increases each year by more than the deficit. For FY 2013 the federal budget estimates that the federal debt will increase by about $1 trillion. That’s about $250 billion more than the official “deficit.” See Federal Debt.

But there’s more. There is the increase in debt from the “agency debt” of government-sponsored enterprises. And there is the implied deficit from unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare. See chart of latest Long-term Budget Outlook from the Congressional Budget Office.

Now you are ready to explore. Click here for the basics on the national debt and deficits. Click here for a look at overall government spending; click here for a look at the federal budget by function. And there is no better place to get up to speed than Spending 101’s online course on Federal Debt.

Deficit Charts   also: Spending Charts  Revenue Charts  Debt Charts  

Recent US Federal Deficits

Chart D.01f: Federal Deficit in billions

Chart D.02f: Federal Deficit in Percent GDP

The two charts show above show recent and budgeted deficits for the US federal government. On the left is a chart of the deficit in current dollars. On the right is a chart of the deficit as a percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

US Federal Deficits in the 20th Century

Chart D.03f: Federal Deficit in 20th Century

The two major peaks of the federal deficit in the 20th century occurred during World War I and World War II.

Deficits increased steadily from the 1960s through the early 1990s, and then declined rapidly for the remainder of the 1990s. Federal deficits increased in the early 2000s, and went over 10 percent of GDP in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008.

In the recovery from the Crash of 2008 deficits have slowly reduced to 3 percent of GDP.

US Federal Deficits since the Founding

Chart D.04f: Federal Deficit since Founding

The United States government did not always run a deficit. In the 19th century the federal government typically only ran deficits during wartime or during financial crises. The government ran a deficit of 2 percent of GDP at the end of the war of 1812, and through the decade after the Panic of 1837 and culminating in the US - Mexican War of 1846-48. It ran a deficit of over 7 percent of GDP in the Civil War; and ran a deficit in the depressed 1890s.
In the 20th century the US ran a defict during World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and in almost all years since 1960, during peace and war.

Top Debt Requests:

Find DEFICIT stats and history.

US BUDGET overview and pie chart.

Find NATIONAL DEBT today.

See FEDERAL BUDGET breakdown and estimated vs. actual.

See BAR CHARTS of debt.

See PIE CHARTS of total debt, federal debt.

Check STATE debt: CA NY TX FL and compare.

See DEBT HISTORY briefing.

Take a COURSE at Spending 101.

Make your own CUSTOM CHART.

Debt Data Sources

Debt data is from official government sources.
  Federal data since 1962 comes from the president’s budget.
  All other debt data comes from the US Census Bureau.

Gross Domestic Product data comes from US Bureau of Economic Analysis and measuringworth.com.

Detailed table of debt data sources here.

Federal debt data begins in 1792.

State and local debt data begins in 1890.

State and local debt data for individual states begins in 1957.

More Topics

Site Search

Spending 101

Win Cash for Bugs

Next Data Update

> State and Local Finances FY13

> data update schedule.

Top links

Headline Spending

Federal Debt Chart

Federal Deficit Chart

Debt, Deficit History

Federal Budget Charts

Federal Budget Numbers

Welfare Spending

Get the Book

US Government Spending 2015: only 99¢.

US Government Spending 2012: free.

Data Sources for 2010_2020:

Sources for 2010:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

Sources for 2020:

GDP, GO: GDP, GO Sources
Federal: Fed. Budget: Hist. Tables 3.2, 5.1, 7.1
State and Local: State and Local Gov. Finances
'Guesstimated' by projecting the latest change in reported spending forward to future years

> data sources for other years
> data update schedule.

CBO Long-term Outlook 2015

Budget News

> archive

Blog

Medicare Part C Updated
Usgovernmentspending.com has updated its estimate of Medicare Part C, the Medicare Advantage progra...

Medicare/Social Security 2015 Trustee Reports Released
On July 22, 2015, the Center for Medicare Services released its annual Medicare Trustees Report, w...

Gross State Product Update for 2014
The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its Gross State Product (GSP) data for 2014 on ...

> blog

Spend links

us numbers • us budget • custom chart • deficit/gdp • spend/gdp • debt/gdp • us gdp • us real gdp • state gdp • breakdown • federal • state • local • 2009 • 2010 • 2011 • california • texas

Masthead

usgovernmentspending.com was designed and executed by:

Christopher Chantrill.

Email here.