The U.S. national debt topped $32 trillion for the first time ever this week, according to Treasury Department data released on Friday.
The debt milestone comes two weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation to suspend the nation’s borrowing limit through the end of 2024.
That bill, which also included tens of billions in spending cuts demanded by House Republicans, will allow the government to borrow whatever it wants until the end of 2024, when the debt ceiling suspension ends.
When Biden signed the bill into law on June 3, the total national debt stood at $31.47 trillion. As of Thursday, the national debt stood at $32.04 trillion.
The national debt grows as long as the federal government keeps spending more than it collects.
The $32 trillion milestone came nine years earlier than forecasted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks in large part to trillions in emergency spending approved by Congress to address the economic effect of widely ordered shutdowns.
The Federal Reserve’s raising of interest rates since last year to combat historic inflation is also expected to make interest payments on the national debt more costly than they have been for decades.
