Who is the national deficit owed to

Despite China's occasional threats to sell its holdings, both countries are happy to be the biggest foreign holders of U. Its holdings have increased in rank as Brexit continues to weaken its economy.

So while many people believe that much of the U. This means U. Hilarey is an associate editorial director for The Balance and has held full-time and freelance roles at a variety of financial media companies including realtor.

Department of the Treasury. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Accessed Oct. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Congressional Research Service. Securities: Implications for the U. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile.

Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. US debt: who owns it and how big is it? Photograph: Corbis. It's an issue that's sure to come up in the first presidential debate this Wednesday. Powered by Tableau. Click heading to sort table. Download this data Country. We have switched off comments on this old version of the site. To comment on crosswords, please switch over to the new version to comment.

Share with twitter. Share with linkedin. Share using email. National Debt Glossary Looks up the key terms for understanding America's financial crisis. A — B Appropriation — Budget Surplus. Appropriation Appropriation act Authorization Authorization, annual Backdoor spending authority Balanced budget Balanced budget amendment Budget deficit Budget resolution, congressional Budget surplus. C — E Continuing Resolution — Entitlements.

O — P Obligation — President's Budget. S — U Scorekeeping — Unfunded Mandate. What's the difference between the debt and the deficit?

Why can't the government just print more money to get out of debt? How much U. Debt per person is calculated by dividing the total debt outstanding by the population of the United States, as published by the U. Census Bureau. Skip to main content. National Debt Clock Peter G. Methodology Click for additional information More Information. America's growing debt is the result of simple math — each year, there is a mismatch between spending and revenues.

Sources Click for additional information More Information. Share URL. Average Healthcare Costs per Person in The interest adds up fast. As the debt grows, so does the interest we pay. Interest will become the fastest growing part of the federal budget. In ten years, our interest will double from where it is today. This is about our future. Budget Categories Billions of Dollars , to Medicare spending is net of premiums and payments from the states.

The vast majority of Americans believe that addressing our debt should be a priority.