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What is the Deficit?
deficit (surplus) - The amount by which outlays exceed receipts in a given fiscal period. (A surplus would be the amount by which receipts exceed outlays.) —US Senate Glossary
In FY 2020 the federal deficit was $3,129 billion. But the gross federal debt increased by $4,230 billion. Here is why.
This year, FY 2021, the federal government in its latest budget has estimated that the deficit will be $3,669 billion.
Here is the federal deficit by year for the last decade:
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Click for deficits from 1960 to present.
See also deficit as percent of GDP.
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Federal Deficit Analysis
Recent US Federal Deficits by Year
Budgeted US Federal Deficits
Topics
| Monthly Federal Spending/Revenue/Deficit Charts Federal Coronavirus/COVID-19 Response |
But there’s more
The federal debt increases each year by more than the deficit. For FY 2021 the federal budget estimates that the federal debt will increase by about $3.33 trillion. That’s about $-339 billion more than the official “deficit.” See Federal Debt.
But there’s more. There is the increase in in the “agency debt” of government-sponsored enterprises like the Federal National Mortgage Association. 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.
US Federal Deficits in the 20th Century
Chart D.03f: Federal Deficits since 1900
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 slowly reduced to 3 percent of GDP in 2015 and then started increasing again.
In the COVID crisis of 2020 the federal deficit has ballooned to over 15 percent of GDP.
Suggested Video: What is the Deficit?
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.
Check STATE debt: CA NY TX FL and compare.
See DEBT ANALYSIS briefing.
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 debt data since 1962 comes from the president’s budget.
- Federal debt for 1940-1961 comes from the president’s budget.
- Federal debt for 1914-1939 comes from the
US Treasury
and St. Louis Fed.
- Federal debt before 1914 comes from the
US Treasury
- 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 1820.
State and local debt data for individual states begins in 1957.
More Topics
| Monthly Federal Spending/Revenue/Deficit Charts Federal Coronavirus/COVID-19 Response |
Gross Federal Debt
| Debt Now: | $28,480,590,009,488.49 | Debt 2/2020: | $23,409,959,150,243.63 |
Of course, the FY2021 Budget came out pre-COVID and the FY2022 is post-COVID. You can see line item changes from budget to budget here. You can compare budget estimates with actuals here. Budget NewsFull FY22 budget coming May 27 President Biden’s Preliminary FY 2022 Federal Budget Released US 2022 budget plan delayed > archive BlogCBO Long Term Budget Outlook for 2021 On March 4, 2021 the Congressional Budget Office released its annual Gross State Product for 2020 The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released its blog Spend linksus numbers • us budget • custom chart • deficit/gdp • spend/gdp • debt/gdp • us gdp • us real gdp • state gdp • breakdown • federal • state • local • 2019 • 2020 • 2021 • california • texas |
