U.S. deficit tops $1.8 trillion in 2024

The Biden administration rang up a budget deficit topping $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2024, up more than 8% from the previous year and the third highest on record, the Treasury Department said Friday.

Even with a modest surplus in September, the shortfall totaled $1.833 trillion, $138 billion higher than a year ago. The only years the U.S. has seen a great deficit were 2020 and 2021 when the government poured trillions into spending associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The deficit came despite record receipts of $4.9 trillion, which fell well short of outlays of $6.75 trillion.

Government debt has swelled to $35.7 trillion, an increase of $2.3 trillion from the end of fiscal 2023.

One aggravating factor for the debt and deficit picture has been high interest rates from the Federal Reserve’s series of hikes to fight inflation.

Interest expense for the year totaled $1.16 trillion, the first time that figure has topped the trillion-dollar level. Net of interest earned on the government’s investments, the total was a record $882 billion, the third-largest outlay in the budget, outstripping all other items except Social Security and health care.

The average interest rate on all the government debt was 3.32% for 2024, up from 2.97% the previous year, a Treasury official said.

The government did run a surplus in September of $64.3 billion, the product in part of calendar effects that pushed benefit payments into August, which saw a $380 billion deficit, the biggest month of the year.

As a share of the total U.S. economy, the deficit is running above 6%, unusual historically during an expansion and well above the 3.7% historical average over the past 50 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO expects deficits to continue to rise, hitting $2.8 trillion by 2034. On the debt side, the office expects it to rise from the current level near 100% of GDP to 122% in 2034.