MyDataLabs
MyDataLabs Quantifying the Unquantifiable
80-Year Structural Index WATCH Fiscal year 2025

U.S. Sovereign Solvency Index

Federal Debt, Interest Burden & Debt Dynamics 1945–2025, built from published FRED series
COMPOSITE SCORE
128.1
arrow_downward −1.0 vs FY2024
Debt held by public 98.1% GDP Gross debt 0%. Post-war peak was 103% in 1945.
Net interest / receipts 18.5% $970bn of $5236bn collected.
Primary deficit 2.6% GDP The gap excluding interest — the part current policy sets.
r − g -1.6pp Effective rate 3.44% vs nominal growth 5.00%. Below zero, debt ratios fall on their own.
Decade average 133.5 2020s to date — highest since the 1940s (135.1).

Structural Risk Gauge

WATCH (100 = sustainable equilibrium)
128.1 / 200
vs baseline
+28.1
vs 2024
−1.0
SUSTAINABLE (<115) WATCH (115–130) STRAINED (130–145) SEVERE (145+)

Where the Risk Sits

(points above baseline, FY2025)
+28.1
Total
Fiscal & Solvency (50% weight) +22.9 pts
Growth & Capacity (30% weight) +4.4 pts
Monetary & Cost (20% weight) +0.8 pts

Each bar shows the block's realised stress as a share of the maximum it could contribute.

Key Drivers

Risk level WATCH
Top driver Federal Debt Held by the Public +9.9 pts
Debt / GDP 98.1% (55% stress)
Interest burden 18.5% (48% stress)
Productivity (10y) 1.87% CAGR
CPI inflation 2.63%
Series peak 154.7 (1946)
Series trough 100.4 (1965)

80 Years of U.S. Structural Fiscal Risk

Composite index and its three blocks, 1945–2025, against a sustainable baseline of 100.0
1946 Demobilisation 1965 Medicare/Medicaid 1971 Bretton Woods ends 1981 ERTA 1990 PAYGO 2001 PAYGO lapses 2008 GFC 2021 Rate shock
View the full annual series as a data table (81 years)
USS-INDEX composite score and component inputs by fiscal year
FY Index Level Debt (% GDP) Interest / receipts Primary deficit Productivity 10y CPI r − g
2025 128.1 Watch 98.1 18.5 +2.62 1.87 2.63 -1.56
2024 129.1 Watch 96.2 17.9 +3.19 1.77 2.95 -1.99
2023 130.3 Strained 94.3 14.8 +3.70 1.58 4.12 -4.03
2022 132.1 Strained 93.1 9.7 +3.45 1.43 8.00 -7.68
2021 134.4 Strained 93.9 8.7 +10.21 1.68 4.70 -9.32
2020 147.3 Severe 98.3 10.1 +12.87 1.47 1.23 +2.82
2019 124.0 Watch 78.0 10.8 +2.82 1.26 1.81 -1.89
2018 124.7 Watch 76.2 9.8 +2.20 1.45 2.44 -3.11
2017 124.7 Watch 74.8 7.9 +2.05 1.44 2.13 -2.44
2016 124.7 Watch 75.3 7.3 +1.83 1.45 1.26 -0.96
2015 122.1 Watch 71.7 6.9 +1.20 1.48 0.12 -2.15
2014 121.7 Watch 72.6 7.6 +1.45 1.58 1.62 -2.40
2013 121.7 Watch 71.0 8.0 +2.72 1.77 1.46 -1.90
2012 124.6 Watch 69.4 9.0 +5.27 2.08 2.07 -2.02
2011 129.3 Watch 64.9 10.0 +6.86 2.41 3.16 -1.11
2010 127.8 Watch 59.9 9.1 +7.30 2.68 1.64 -1.34
2009 137.0 Strained 52.1 8.9 +8.47 2.66 -0.36 +5.20
2008 120.8 Watch 39.3 10.0 +1.39 2.65 3.84 +2.98
2007 105.8 Sustainable 34.8 9.2 -0.53 2.85 2.85 +0.14
2006 102.9 Sustainable 35.0 9.4 +0.16 2.88 3.23 -1.02
2005 104.1 Sustainable 35.2 8.5 +1.03 3.00 3.39 -2.45
2004 105.2 Sustainable 35.2 8.5 +2.07 2.88 2.68 -2.55
2003 105.7 Sustainable 34.2 8.6 +1.96 2.65 2.27 -0.50
2002 108.2 Sustainable 32.4 9.2 -0.12 2.29 1.59 +1.87
2001 112.4 Sustainable 31.4 10.3 -3.16 2.31 2.83 +2.82
2000 105.9 Sustainable 33.3 11.0 -4.48 2.22 3.38 -0.30
1999 108.1 Sustainable 37.7 12.6 -3.69 2.09 2.19 -0.10
1998 114.4 Sustainable 41.1 14.0 -3.42 1.78 1.55 +0.73
1997 116.4 Watch 44.0 15.4 -2.59 1.62 2.34 +0.29
1996 121.7 Watch 46.2 16.6 -1.66 1.48 2.93 +1.02
1995 123.8 Watch 47.2 17.2 -0.89 1.56 2.81 +1.92
1994 116.3 Watch 47.1 16.1 +0.00 1.63 2.61 -0.00
1993 120.1 Watch 47.4 17.2 +0.82 1.78 2.95 +1.44
1992 119.9 Watch 46.0 18.3 +1.40 2.18 3.03 +1.53
1991 128.7 Watch 43.7 18.4 +1.21 1.65 4.23 +4.79
1990 126.5 Watch 40.4 17.9 +0.62 1.63 5.40 +2.72
1989 119.9 Watch 38.8 17.1 -0.29 1.46 4.83 +0.50
1988 119.3 Watch 39.2 16.7 +0.06 1.36 4.08 +0.18
1987 122.5 Watch 38.9 16.2 +0.23 1.33 3.66 +1.95
1986 126.1 Watch 38.0 17.7 +1.86 1.45 1.90 +3.48
1985 125.9 Watch 34.7 17.6 +1.91 1.50 3.55 +2.44
1984 117.9 Watch 32.4 16.7 +1.84 1.59 4.30 -1.34
1983 131.0 Strained 31.3 14.9 +3.25 1.20 3.21 +1.03
1982 135.0 Strained 27.6 13.8 +1.28 1.10 6.13 +6.51
1981 118.4 Watch 24.6 11.5 +0.32 1.53 10.33 -2.58
1980 117.3 Watch 24.9 10.2 +0.75 1.77 13.55 -0.55
1979 112.7 Sustainable 24.4 9.2 -0.07 1.92 11.25 -4.70
1978 111.1 Sustainable 25.8 8.9 +1.01 1.95 7.63 -6.50
1977 108.8 Sustainable 26.4 8.4 +1.14 2.16 6.50 -4.86
1976 112.3 Sustainable 25.5 9.0 +2.51 2.17 5.74 -4.42
1975 113.9 Sustainable 23.4 8.3 +1.78 2.19 9.14 -2.28
1974 110.1 Sustainable 22.2 8.2 -0.99 2.24 11.05 -2.12
1973 105.2 Sustainable 23.9 7.5 -0.17 2.68 6.18 -6.05
1972 102.8 Sustainable 25.2 7.5 +0.62 2.71 3.27 -4.70
1971 104.2 Sustainable 26.0 7.9 +0.70 2.82 4.29 -3.29
1970 106.5 Sustainable 26.4 7.5 -1.07 2.76 5.84 -0.30
1969 104.3 Sustainable 27.3 6.8 -1.57 2.73 5.46 -3.80
1968 105.7 Sustainable 30.8 7.2 +1.50 3.07 4.27 -5.22
1967 101.0 Sustainable 31.0 6.9 -0.19 2.95 2.77 -1.83
1966 101.3 Sustainable 32.4 7.2 -0.70 3.02 3.02 -5.98
1965 100.4 Sustainable 35.1 7.3 -0.97 2.60 1.59 -5.10
1964 100.7 Sustainable 37.5 7.3 -0.33 2.71 1.28 -4.15
1963 105.7 Sustainable 39.9 7.3 -0.47 2.63 1.24 -2.43
1962 105.9 Sustainable 41.1 6.9 +0.04 2.54 1.20 -4.53
1961 107.9 Sustainable 42.4 7.1 -0.60 2.28 1.07 -0.82
1960 104.1 Sustainable 43.7 7.5 -1.34 2.21 1.46 -1.01
1959 104.1 Sustainable 45.0 7.3 +1.36 2.75 1.01 -5.85
1958 111.4 Sustainable 47.0 7.0 -0.59 2.72 2.73 +1.04
1957 103.7 Sustainable 46.3 6.7 -1.85 2.74 3.34 -3.08
1956 103.2 Sustainable PARTIAL 49.5 6.8 -2.01 — 1.53 -3.37
1955 104.1 Sustainable PARTIAL 53.3 7.4 -0.44 — -0.28 -6.78
1954 115.2 Watch PARTIAL 57.5 6.9 -0.94 — 0.31 +1.86
1953 105.6 Sustainable PARTIAL 56.1 7.4 +0.34 — 0.82 -3.56
1952 105.7 Sustainable PARTIAL 58.5 7.1 -0.87 — 2.28 -3.69
1951 117.6 Watch PARTIAL 61.8 9.0 -3.10 — 7.86 -13.57
1950 113.2 Sustainable PARTIAL 73.0 12.2 -0.56 — 1.09 -7.79
1949 127.3 Watch PARTIAL 78.7 11.5 -1.87 — -0.97 +2.82
1948 122.7 Watch PARTIAL 78.8 10.4 -5.88 — 7.69 -8.02
1947 129.8 Watch PARTIAL 89.9 10.9 -3.29 — 14.39 -7.97
1946 154.7 Severe PARTIAL 106.3 10.5 +5.20 — 8.48 +1.95
1945 141.1 Strained PARTIAL 103.2 6.9 +19.49 — 2.27 +0.10

The Fiscal Dynamics Quadrant

Every year 1945–2025 placed by the two terms that drive the debt ratio: r − g horizontally, primary balance vertically. Up and right are the adverse directions.
Which quadrant this is This plots the two independently measured terms of the debt-dynamics equation against each other — the standard sustainability quadrant in IMF and ECB debt-sustainability work. It is not the quadrant the source material used, which plotted inherited index level against a presidential contribution score; because those two are mechanically correlated (R² ≈ 0.51, see the methodology tab), its quadrants largely sorted administrations by where they happened to start. This one sorts years by the mechanism actually moving the debt ratio.
Compounding
16 of 81 years (20%)  ·  last in 2020
r > g and a primary deficit. Both terms push the ratio up; it rises with no new policy at all.
Outgrowing the deficit
FY2025 IS HERE
32 of 81 years (40%)  ·  last in 2025
A primary deficit absorbed by favourable dynamics. Durable only while r stays below g.
Consolidating
22 of 81 years (27%)  ·  last in 2000
Primary surplus and r < g. Both terms cut the ratio — the post-war and late-1990s configuration.
Running to stand still
11 of 81 years (14%)  ·  last in 2007
A primary surplus spent offsetting adverse dynamics. Real austerity, little improvement in the ratio.

The United States has spent more years outgrowing its deficit than in any other configuration, and FY2025 sits there too — r − g is -1.6pp, so the existing stock is still eroding faster than the 2.6% primary deficit adds to it. That is a position which depends entirely on r staying below g: the projection section is about what happens when it does not. Points far from the cluster are wars and crises (1945, 1951, 2009, 2020–21); scroll to zoom.

What Moved the Debt Ratio Each Year

dt − dt−1 = dt−1·(r−g)/(1+g)  +  primary deficit  +  stock-flow adjustment

The snowball is what the existing debt stock does on its own at the prevailing r − g; the primary deficit is what the year's policy adds. The two frequently pull in opposite directions, which is why headline deficit figures alone mislead: in FY2022 a 3.5% primary deficit was more than cancelled by a -6.6pp snowball as inflation eroded the real stock, and the ratio actually fell. The stock-flow adjustment is the residual — borrowing that does not pass through the headline deficit, plus the ~3-month fiscal/calendar offset in these joins. It is plotted rather than absorbed into the other two, because a decomposition whose residual is quietly dropped is one that always appears to close. It averages 0.76pp of GDP and is largest in 1946–47 and 2020–21.

Debt Dynamics: Where the Path Goes

dt = dt−1 · (1 + rt) / (1 + gt) + pbt, run forward 30 years under three r − g assumptions
Read the spread, not the line Nearly all of the variation below comes from r − g, a quantity nobody can forecast. Under the favourable path the debt ratio stabilises and the interest burden never reaches the distress zone; under the adverse path it passes it in 2032. That 9-year gap — plus a scenario in which it never happens — is the finding. Any single date quoted for this is one guess about r − g dressed up as a result.
Favourable
r → 3.4%  ·  g = 4.4%  ·  r−g = -1.0pp  ·  primary deficit → 1.5% GDP
Rates stay near today's effective cost while nominal growth runs at the pre-2008 trend, and the primary deficit is halved to 1.5% of GDP. r − g stays negative, so the debt ratio erodes on its own.
2055: debt 117% of GDP, interest 23% of receipts
Baseline
r → 4.3%  ·  g = 4.0%  ·  r−g = +0.3pp  ·  primary deficit → 3.0% GDP
The effective rate on the stock converges upward to 4.3% as low-coupon debt from the 2010s rolls off, nominal growth settles at 4.0%, and the primary deficit holds near its current 3% of GDP. r − g turns mildly positive.
2055: debt 194% of GDP, interest 48% of receipts
Adverse
r → 5.5%  ·  g = 3.5%  ·  r−g = +2.0pp  ·  primary deficit → 4.5% GDP
Term premia rebuild, the effective rate reaches 5.5%, nominal growth slows to 3.5% on demographic drag, and the primary deficit widens to 4.5% as retirement and health outlays land. r − g sits at +2pp and the ratio compounds.
2055: debt 322% of GDP, interest 100% of receipts
20% Crowding-out
2026–2027
Debt service exceeds all non-defence discretionary spending.
2027 2026 2026
25% Distress zone
2028–2030 or never
The band where rating agencies have historically downgraded sovereigns.
never 2030 2028
35% Fiscal dominance
2032–2041 or never
Debt service crowds out the discretionary budget entirely; monetary policy loses independence.
never 2041 2032

These are fiscal-stress thresholds, not default thresholds. A government that borrows in a currency it issues does not become insolvent at a ratio; what these levels mark is the point at which debt service crowds the discretionary budget out and the remaining options are austerity, inflation, or financial repression. The 35% level is a stated convention here, not an established constant — it is shown because it is the level the original framing used, so the two can be compared.

Reserve-Currency Displacement Simulator

What if the world moves reserves out of the dollar? Move the sliders — the debt-dynamics recursion re-runs live.
What is and is not being modelled The channel here is the one that is actually quantified in the literature: foreign demand for dollar safe assets compresses Treasury yields, and losing it widens them. The default pass-through — 2.4bp of extra borrowing cost per percentage point of reserve share lost — comes from taking ~140bp as the cost of losing the privilege entirely (Warnock & Warnock 2009: ~80bp; Krishnamurthy & Vissing-Jorgensen 2012: ~73bp convenience yield) spread across today's 57.7pp of allocated reserves. That number is an assumption, not a measurement, so it is a slider too — and the true relationship is very unlikely to be linear, since the marginal effect should grow as the buffer thins.

Not modelled: dollar depreciation feeding import prices and inflation, lost seigniorage, and any disorderly repricing. Each would make the outcome worse, so this is a conservative reading of the scenario.
Reserve share shifted off USD 0 pp
Rate pass-through 2.4 bp/pp
The key assumption. Drag it.
Nominal GDP growth (g) 4.0%
Baseline 4.0%
Primary deficit (pb) 3.0% GDP
Compare this lever against the reserve one
Added borrowing cost +0bp Effective rate 4.30% at full rollover
r − g +0.3pp Above zero, the debt ratio compounds on its own.
Debt / GDP in 2055 194% From 98% today
Interest / receipts 48% In 2055, from 19% today
35% threshold reached 2041 Fiscal dominance — debt service crowds out the discretionary budget

Index in 2035 under these settings: — —
Debt, interest burden, primary deficit and r − g are moved by the simulation; productivity and inflation are held at today's values because this model does not project them. Reported at 10 years rather than 30 because by the late 2040s every path pushes debt past the 150%-of-GDP cap on the debt component and the index saturates.

The Trend, by Decade

Mean index level per decade. This is the "structural degradation" claim stated plainly — and it is not monotonic: the 1990s and 2000s both improved on the decade before them.
Mean USS-INDEX level by decade
Decade Mean index Level Years Relative position
1940s 135.1 STRAINED 5
+35
1950s 108.4 SUSTAINABLE 10
+8
1960s 103.7 SUSTAINABLE 10
+4
1970s 108.8 SUSTAINABLE 10
+9
1980s 123.3 WATCH 10
+23
1990s 119.6 WATCH 10
+20
2000s 110.8 SUSTAINABLE 10
+11
2010s 124.5 WATCH 10
+24
2020s 133.5 STRAINED 6
+34

Component Breakdown Matrix

Composite = 100 + ∑(weight × stress score) for FY2025. Full derivation on the methodology tab.
USS-INDEX component breakdown for fiscal year 2025
Indicator component Block FY2025 value Baseline Crisis threshold Stress score (0–100) Weight Index contribution Source
Federal Debt Held by the Public
Fiscal & Solvency 98.07 % GDP 35.00 150.00
55
18% +9.86 OMB / FRED FYPUGDA188S
Net Interest / Federal Receipts
Fiscal & Solvency 18.53 % receipts 8.00 30.00
48
17% +8.14 U.S. Treasury MTS / FRED FYOINT, FYFR
Primary Deficit (ex-Interest)
Fiscal & Solvency 2.62 % GDP 0.00 8.00
33
15% +4.92 OMB / FRED FYFSD, FYOINT, GDPA
Labour Productivity Growth (10y)
Growth & Capacity 1.87 % CAGR 2.10 0.00
11
15% +1.65 BLS / FRED OPHNFB
Real GDP per Capita Growth (10y)
Growth & Capacity 1.80 % CAGR 2.20 0.00
18
15% +2.73 BEA / FRED A939RX0Q048SBEA
CPI-U Inflation
Monetary & Cost 2.63 % YoY 2.00 10.00
8
10% +0.79 BLS / FRED CPIAUCNS
Borrowing Cost less Growth (r − g)
Monetary & Cost -1.56 pp -1.00 3.00
0
10% +0.00 Derived: FRED FYOINT / FYGFDPUB vs GDPA

Statutory Turning Points

Dated to the legislation, and described by what the law did. These annotate the series — they are not scored, ranked, or attributed to an administration. See the methodology tab for why.
1946 index 154.7
Post-war demobilisation
Defence outlays fell from 37% of GDP to under 5% in three years. Combined with 1946-48 inflation, which cut the real value of the debt stock by roughly a third, the ratio fell faster than any deliberate repayment could have achieved.
1965 index 100.4
Social Security Act Amendments of 1965
Created Medicare and Medicaid as open-ended fee-for-service entitlements with no dedicated actuarial pre-funding. The cost showed up decades later, which is exactly why a contemporaneous index registers almost nothing here.
1971 index 104.2
Suspension of gold convertibility
Ended the dollar's gold peg and removed the external constraint on monetary expansion. The 1972 Social Security amendments added automatic CPI indexing on a formula that over-corrected for inflation until it was repaired in 1977.
1981 index 118.4
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981
Cut marginal rates 23% across the board while defence spending rose to 6.1% of GDP. Establishes the modern pattern of large structural deficits at full employment, visible here as the first sustained peacetime rise in the interest burden.
1990 index 126.5
Budget Enforcement Act of 1990
Introduced statutory PAYGO and discretionary caps. With the 1993 OBRA rate increases and the late-1990s productivity acceleration, this produced the only sustained surpluses in the post-war record.
2001 index 112.4
EGTRRA and the expiry of statutory PAYGO
PAYGO was allowed to expire, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts passed without offsets, and Medicare Part D was added in 2003 with no dedicated financing. The projected surplus reverted to structural deficit within two years.
2008 index 120.8
Financial crisis and the zero-rate era
The debt ratio roughly doubled, but near-zero policy rates held the effective cost of the stock down: r − g stayed firmly negative for a decade, which is why the interest burden fell while the debt rose.
2021 index 134.4
Post-COVID inflation and the end of free debt
525bp of tightening from 2022 repriced the stock as it rolled over. Net interest went from $352bn in FY2021 to over $1tn in FY2025, passing total defence outlays — the single largest change in the fiscal block in the series.

Presidential Structural Contribution

Each term's change in the index, after removing the business cycle and the arithmetic of where it started
Read the error bar before the ranking

The residual standard deviation across the fourteen terms is ±11.3 points — a quarter of the entire range of scores. 10 of 14 administrations fall inside that band, which means their scores are not distinguishable from each other or from zero. Only Donald Trump (+17.3), George W. Bush (+14.2), Dwight D. Eisenhower (-14.1), Harry S. Truman (-22.6) separate from the noise.

Mean residual by party is -1.8 for Democratic terms and +1.8 for Republican — a gap of 3.6 points against an error bar of 11.3. There is no party signal in this data. The bipartisan reading is the one the numbers support: both parties appear at both ends.

Positive = added structural risk. Bars are coloured by party — Republican and Democratic — and note that both colours appear at both ends. The shaded band is ±1 residual standard deviation (11.3 points); bars drawn hollow fall inside it and are indistinguishable from zero.

Inherited vs. Created

The same fourteen terms, before and after the mean-reversion correction — toggle the series in the legend
Why the correction matters Plot each term's raw index change against the level it inherited and you get a strong downward slope: R² = 0.417. Inherit a high number and you are near-guaranteed a "good" score; inherit a low one and you are near-guaranteed a bad one. That slope is regression to the mean, not policy. Removing the cycle and then residualising on the inherited level takes the remaining dependence down to R² = 0.249. The corrected points below are flat against the x-axis by construction — that is the fix working, and it reorders the table substantially: Eisenhower and Nixon each fall 8 places against the raw ranking, Obama rises nine.

Full Decomposition

Ranked by structural residual. Rank range is the span across four weighting schemes — the ordering is reasonably stable to weighting (widest swing 3 places), but that is a much weaker claim than the ordering being significant, which mostly it is not.
Presidential structural contribution decomposition
# President Party Budget FYs Inherited Ending Raw change Cyclical Mean-reversion expected Structural residual Per year In recession Rank range
1 Donald Trump Republican 2018–2021 124.7 134.4 +9.7 -3.0 -4.6 +17.3 +4.33 4% 1–4
2 George W. Bush Republican 2002–2009 112.4 137.0 +24.6 +8.8 +1.6 +14.2 +1.77 19% 1–2
3 Ronald Reagan Republican 1982–1989 118.4 119.9 +1.5 -7.8 -1.5 +10.8 +1.35 11% 3
4 Barack Obama Democrat 2010–2017 137.0 124.7 -12.3 -9.2 -10.8 +7.7 +0.96 0% 2–5
5 Joe Biden Democrat 2022–2025 134.4 128.1 -6.3 -0.7 -9.5 +3.9 +0.97 0% 4–7
6 Jimmy Carter Democrat 1978–1981 108.8 118.4 +9.6 +2.5 +3.4 +3.7 +0.93 23% 4–6
7 Lyndon B. Johnson Democrat 1964–1969 105.7 104.3 -1.4 -6.7 +4.9 +0.4 +0.07 0% 6–7
8 John F. Kennedy Democrat 1962–1963 107.9 105.7 -2.2 -4.8 +3.8 -1.2 -0.60 0% 8–9
9 George H. W. Bush Republican 1990–1993 119.9 120.1 +0.2 +6.2 -2.2 -3.8 -0.95 17% 8–11
10 Gerald Ford Republican 1975–1977 110.1 108.8 -1.3 +0.1 +2.7 -4.1 -1.37 8% 9–10
11 Bill Clinton Democrat 1994–2001 120.1 112.4 -7.7 -0.8 -2.3 -4.6 -0.57 8% 9–11
12 Richard Nixon Republican 1970–1974 104.3 110.1 +5.8 +7.8 +5.7 -7.7 -1.54 40% 12
13 Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican 1954–1961 105.6 107.9 +2.3 +11.4 +5.0 -14.1 -1.76 24% 13
14 Harry S. Truman Democrat 1946–1953 141.1 105.6 -35.5 n/a -12.9 -22.6 -2.83 17% 14

Greyed rows are the 10 administrations whose residual is inside ±11.3 points, i.e. indistinguishable from zero.

Terms follow the budget-responsibility convention: a president owns the fiscal years whose budgets they submitted. FY2009 — which began in October 2008 and carries TARP — is therefore George W. Bush's, and Barack Obama's first year is FY2010. The alternative convention (crediting the year of inauguration) moves several rankings, which is exactly why the choice is stated rather than assumed.

No exogenous-shock adjustment is subtracted. There is no estimator for one: whether a given emergency package counts as exogenous or structural is a judgement, and it swings the ordering by more than the ordering's own spread. The "in recession" column reports the share of each term's months in an NBER-dated recession so the reader can weigh it directly rather than have a preference encoded for them. This is the main reason these ranks differ from versions that strip pandemic and crisis spending by hand.

What Was Estimated, and How Well

Both corrections are regressions on this series, not chosen constants. Their fit statistics are published so the corrections can be judged rather than trusted.
1. Cyclical correction
Δindex = 0.08 -2.275 × Δ(output gap)
n = 76 years  ·  R² = 0.472  ·  se(β) = 0.279  ·  t = -8.14
A 1pp widening of the CBO output gap moves the index +2.27 points. Strongly determined (|t| > 8), so the cyclical share of a term's change is a measured quantity rather than an assumed one.
2. Mean-reversion correction
Δadjusted = 58.27 -0.504 × inherited level
n = 14 terms  ·  R² = 0.249  ·  se(β) = 0.253  ·  t = -1.99
Every point of inherited index level predicts 0.50 points of subsequent "improvement" for free. Only fourteen observations, so this correction is itself uncertain — which is precisely why the residual carries a ±11.3 band.
3. What is not estimated
No exogenous-shock term and no inherited-baseline-momentum term. Both are counterfactuals with no estimator on this data. Constructions that include them do so as per-president constants, which makes the resulting ranking an input to the model rather than an output of it. Omitting them is why the pandemic years weigh on the terms that contain them here.
Structural residual under each weighting scheme
President Balanced (published index)Fiscal-heavyGrowth-heavyEqual weights Rank range
Donald Trump +17.3 #1 +21.4 #1 +10.2 #4 +17.0 #1 1–4
George W. Bush +14.2 #2 +15.3 #2 +12.7 #1 +12.7 #2 1–2
Ronald Reagan +10.8 #3 +9.7 #3 +11.0 #3 +11.6 #3 3
Barack Obama +7.7 #4 +5.3 #5 +12.3 #2 +5.4 #5 2–5
Joe Biden +3.9 #5 +8.2 #4 +0.8 #7 +0.9 #7 4–7
Jimmy Carter +3.7 #6 +1.8 #6 +6.3 #5 +5.5 #4 4–6
Lyndon B. Johnson +0.4 #7 -1.4 #7 +0.9 #6 +3.2 #6 6–7
John F. Kennedy -1.2 #8 -2.9 #9 +0.7 #8 -1.0 #8 8–9
George H. W. Bush -3.8 #9 -1.4 #8 -6.6 #11 -4.6 #11 8–11
Gerald Ford -4.1 #10 -4.2 #10 -3.7 #9 -4.4 #10 9–10
Bill Clinton -4.6 #11 -7.4 #11 -3.8 #10 -1.3 #9 9–11
Richard Nixon -7.7 #12 -8.0 #12 -7.1 #12 -6.0 #12 12
Dwight D. Eisenhower -14.1 #13 -14.4 #13 -10.7 #13 -16.1 #13 13
Harry S. Truman -22.6 #14 -21.9 #14 -22.9 #14 -22.6 #14 14

Enacted Since the Data Ends

The index runs through FY2025. These are real, scored, and in none of the charts above.
Why these are listed rather than added in Every chart above is measured: it contains only closed fiscal years from published series. The items below are projections and in-year estimates. Folding a CBO ten-year score into an eighty-year historical series would make that series no longer a measurement — the exact failure mode this dashboard was built to avoid. They are quantified here, translated into the units the projection uses, and left out of the index until the fiscal years actually close.
OBBBA, primary deficit $3.4tn FY2025–34. $4.1tn including the debt service it generates.
As an annual burden 0.89% GDP/yr Rising to 1.43% if the temporary provisions are made permanent.
Iran conflict, to date $30–40bn 0.13% of GDP. $87.6bn supplemental requested, ~a third of it war-related.
Threshold moves 2041→2039 Adding OBBBA to the baseline primary deficit costs 2 years, and takes 2055 debt from 194% to 218% of GDP.
The scale comparison most coverage gets backwards In cumulative fiscal terms the tax bill is roughly 85 times the war. OBBBA adds about 8.9% of GDP to borrowing across its ten-year window; the Iran conflict, at the upper estimate, is 0.13% of GDP once. Wars are politically enormous and, at this point in history, fiscally small — the panel below shows why that was not always true.
Fiscal items enacted after the end of the measured series
Item Enacted Scale What it is Source
One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) July 2025 $3.4tn primary
$4.1tn with interest · $5.5tn if extended 		The single largest fiscal action in the series' recent history. CBO's $3.4tn is the primary-deficit effect; $4.1tn includes the debt service it generates. Neither figure includes macroeconomic feedback, which CRFB expects would add to borrowing rather than offset it. CBO final score; extension estimate from CRFB
Iran conflict (Operation Epic Fury) 2026, ongoing $30–40bn
$87.6bn supplemental requested 		OMB puts direct war costs near $30bn; CSIS estimates ~$40bn including base repair. The $87.6bn supplemental request is broader than the war — roughly a third is war-related, the rest is other defence priorities and unrelated agency funding. OMB testimony (30 June 2026) and CSIS analysis (July 2026)
FY2026 national defence budget FY2026 $1.0tn
$1.5tn requested for FY2027 		National defence passed $1tn for the first time in FY2026, up more than 13% on FY2025, with $1.5tn requested for FY2027. In share-of-GDP terms — the measure that matters for solvency — this is still near the lowest of the whole post-war record. CRFB, defence funding in context

Wars and the Defence Burden

National defence as a share of GDP, 1945–2025, against the solvency index
Wars enter this index through the debt they leave There is no war component, and no attempt to back a "cost of the war" out of aggregate outlays. Trying the standard method — defence spending above its own three-years-prior baseline — gives sensible answers for Korea and the post-9/11 wars and nonsense for two others: Vietnam scores 0.2pp of GDP because 1962–64 defence was already 10.9% of GDP and the war was absorbed inside a standing Cold War establishment, and the Gulf War scores zero because it was fought during the post-Cold-War drawdown. Both are arithmetically correct and analytically useless, which is the same unidentified-counterfactual problem the presidential panel refuses to pretend it has solved. So this panel reports what is measured — the burden, and the debt across each period — and cites CRS for constant-dollar operation costs rather than deriving a rival estimate.
Defence today 3.7% GDP The 4th-lowest of 81 years, even with a budget above $1tn.
Post-war peak 37.2% GDP 1945 — ten times today's share. WWII cost $4.1tn in FY2011 dollars.
Record low 3.6% GDP 2022. The burden has fallen for eighty years while the debt ratio rose.
Measured: what the data shows across each period
Defence burden and debt change across each conflict period
Period Years Peak defence Mean defence Change in debt/GDP Change in index
WWII PARTIAL 1945–1945 37.2% 37.20% +0.0 pp +0.0
Korea 1950–1953 15.7% 12.88% -22.5 pp -21.7
Vietnam 1965–1975 11.1% 8.95% -14.1 pp +13.2
Cold War buildup 1981–1989 7.7% 7.34% +13.9 pp +2.6
Gulf War 1990–1991 6.8% 6.75% +4.8 pp +8.8
Post-9/11 wars 2001–2021 5.5% 4.46% +60.7 pp +28.5

Korea and Vietnam both saw debt/GDP fall — Korea was financed with tax increases, and Vietnam's ratio was outrun by nominal growth and inflation even as the index rose +13.2 points on that inflation. The post-9/11 wars are the outlier: debt/GDP rose +60.7pp, though most of that is the 2008 crisis and its response rather than the wars themselves — which is exactly why no causal split is attempted here.

Cited: CRS constant-dollar costs of major U.S. wars
Congressional Research Service estimates of the cost of major U.S. wars
War Years Peak year Cost, then-year $ Cost, constant FY2011 $ War cost, % GDP at peak Total defence, % GDP at peak
World War II 1941–1945 1945 $296bn $4,104bn 35.8% 37.5%
Korea 1950–1953 1952 $30bn $341bn 4.2% 13.2%
Vietnam 1965–1975 1968 $111bn $738bn 2.3% 9.5%
Persian Gulf 1990–1991 1991 $61bn $102bn 0.3% 4.6%
Iraq 2003–2010 2008 $715bn $784bn 1.0% 4.3%
Afghanistan / other 2001–2010 2010 $297bn $321bn 0.7% 4.9%

Source: Congressional Research Service, Costs of Major U.S. Wars (RS22926, 29 June 2010), Table 1. Military operations only — these figures exclude veterans' benefits, interest on war borrowing, and aid to allies, which is why the post-9/11 total here ($1.1tn through 2010) is a fraction of Brown University's Costs of War estimate of roughly $8tn through FY2022 once future veterans' care (~$2.2–2.5tn to 2050) and interest (over $1tn already paid) are included. Two defensible numbers measuring different things; neither is wrong.

Debt Added, by Administration

Three measures of the same eighty years. They disagree about who tops the list, and the disagreement is the reason to show all three.
Nominal dollars are the misleading one Prices are about 18 times their 1945 level and the economy is 135 times larger, so a nominal ranking sorts presidents mostly by when they served. On that measure Joe Biden tops the list at $7,883bn; in constant 2025 dollars it is Barack Obama; as a share of GDP — the only measure comparable across the whole period, and the one the index uses — it is Barack Obama at +22.7 points.

This table is raw: no cyclical correction and no mean-reversion correction. It answers "how much debt accumulated on whose watch", which is a different and much weaker question than "who added structural risk" — that one is answered, with error bars, in the panel above.
Debt added by administration on three measures
President Party Budget FYs Debt at start Debt at end Added, nominal Added, 2025 $ Per year, 2025 $ Change in debt/GDP
Barack Obama Democrat 2010–2017 $7,545bn $14,665bn $7,121bn $7,940bn $992bn +22.7 pp
George W. Bush Republican 2002–2009 $3,320bn $7,545bn $4,225bn $5,286bn $661bn +20.7 pp
Donald Trump Republican 2018–2021 $14,665bn $22,284bn $7,619bn $7,214bn $1,804bn +19.1 pp
Ronald Reagan Republican 1982–1989 $789bn $2,191bn $1,401bn $2,894bn $362bn +14.2 pp
George H. W. Bush Republican 1990–1993 $2,191bn $3,248bn $1,058bn $1,550bn $388bn +8.5 pp
Gerald Ford Republican 1975–1977 $344bn $549bn $205bn $673bn $224bn +4.1 pp
Joe Biden Democrat 2022–2025 $22,284bn $30,167bn $7,883bn $3,691bn $923bn +4.1 pp
Jimmy Carter Democrat 1978–1981 $549bn $789bn $240bn $-122bn $-30bn -1.8 pp
John F. Kennedy Democrat 1962–1963 $238bn $254bn $16bn $102bn $51bn -2.5 pp
Richard Nixon Republican 1970–1974 $278bn $344bn $66bn $-197bn $-39bn -5.1 pp
Lyndon B. Johnson Democrat 1964–1969 $254bn $278bn $24bn $-230bn $-38bn -12.5 pp
Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican 1954–1961 $218bn $238bn $20bn $-59bn $-7bn -13.7 pp
Bill Clinton Democrat 1994–2001 $3,248bn $3,320bn $71bn $-1,204bn $-150bn -16.0 pp
Harry S. Truman Democrat 1946–1953 $235bn $218bn $-17bn $-1,582bn $-198bn -47.0 pp
Sorted by change in debt/GDP, largest first. Over the eighty years, the 7 Democratic terms (40 years) coincided with a -53.0pp change in debt/GDP and the 7 Republican terms (40 years) with +47.8pp — but almost all of the Democratic figure is Truman's -47.0pp post-war demobilisation, which no later administration could repeat and which the mean-reversion correction exists to discount. Read this row as arithmetic, not as a verdict.

Executive Summary

What every number on this page adds up to, in plain language. Every figure below is read from the series at render time, so this text cannot drift away from the data underneath it.
U.S. federal finances score 128.1 for FY2025 — WATCH — which is 28.1 points above the sustainable equilibrium of 100, and roughly two-thirds of the way from that equilibrium to the 1946 wartime peak of 154.7. The 2020s average of 133.5 is the highest of any decade since the 1940s.

Which president was best or worst for U.S. solvency?

Only four of 14 can be answered for. Harry S. Truman (-22.6) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (-14.1) reduced structural risk by more than the margin of error; Donald Trump (+17.3) and George W. Bush (+14.2) added to it by more than that margin. The other 10 administrations land inside a ±11.3-point band and are not distinguishable from one another, or from having done nothing at all.

Anyone quoting a clean fourteen-place league table of presidents is reporting noise as signal. The spread between, say, 6th and 11th place here is a fraction of the error bar on any single one of them.

Which party is better for the public finances?

On this evidence, neither. The mean structural residual is -1.8 for Democratic terms and +1.8 for Republican ones. That gap of 3.6 points is 32% of the ±11.3 error bar — far too small to call a difference. Both parties appear at both ends of the ranking.

What differs is mechanism, not net effect. The record shows Democratic administrations expanding mandatory entitlement commitments without matching revenue, and Republican ones enacting permanent tax reductions without matching spending cuts. Two routes to the same arithmetic. The structural deficit is a bipartisan construction, and the data will not support blaming either side for it.

How did the U.S. get here?

Not through any single decision. The post-war low was FY1965 (100.4) and the index has risen in steps ever since, with each step tied to a statute rather than an administration: entitlement programmes created without dedicated funding, tax cuts enacted without offsets, and the lapse of the PAYGO rules that briefly forced the two to be reconciled.

The single largest change in the series is recent and mechanical. Net interest now consumes 18.5% of federal receipts — the highest in the entire 80-year record, having roughly doubled since 2021 as near-zero-coupon debt from the 2010s rolled over into a higher-rate world.

What does it mean for the rest of the world?

U.S. Treasuries are the global risk-free asset and the dollar is 57.7% of allocated foreign exchange reserves. The rate the U.S. Treasury pays therefore sets a floor under sovereign and corporate borrowing costs almost everywhere, so a sustained rise in the U.S. term premium is exported rather than contained.

The important detail is that the world currently subsidises this position. r − g is -1.6pp, meaning the debt stock erodes faster than it accrues and the ratio would fall on its own even with a 2.6%-of-GDP primary deficit. The last five years make the point starkly: inflation's erosion removed 21.6 points of debt/GDP while policy added 23.2. Almost the entire fiscal gap was paid for by inflation rather than by taxation or restraint.

That is a borrowed condition, not a permanent one. The United States currently sits in the “Outgrowing the deficit” quadrant, which holds only while r stays below g.

How much time is there, and what actually changes it?

Net interest reaches 35% of receipts — the level at which debt service crowds out the discretionary budget — somewhere between 2032 and 2041, or never under the favourable path. That range, not any single date, is the finding: it is almost entirely a function of r − g, which nobody can forecast.

The two levers are comparable in size, and one of them is not the one usually discussed. Shifting 30 percentage points of global reserves out of the dollar pulls the date forward to 2035. Letting the primary deficit widen to 6% of GDP pulls it to 2036. Halving it to 1.5% pushes it out to 2048 — a bigger move than de-dollarisation, and the only one entirely within domestic control.

Bottom line

The U.S. fiscal position is strained but not critical, and it is deteriorating slowly rather than approaching a cliff. Its current stability rests on a favourable r − g that is neither guaranteed nor domestically controlled, while the interest burden has already reached a post-war high. The problem is a multi-decade, bipartisan accumulation; the arithmetic that resolves it is the primary deficit, which is the one term in the equation that policy sets directly.

This is an index of structural risk, not a forecast and not investment advice. A government that borrows in a currency it issues does not default at a ratio — what these thresholds mark is the point at which the remaining options narrow to austerity, inflation, or financial repression.