logo

Did the national debt increase by $7.7 trillion during Trump’s presidency?

Tuesday, January 19, 2021
By Lauralei Singsank
YES

U.S. national debt increased by about $7.7 trillion during the four years of the Trump presidency—according to the Treasury’s official monthly statement, to $27.75 trillion on Dec. 31, 2020, from $19.93 trillion on Jan. 31, 2017.

The Balance, a financial-news provider, compares past presidents’ fiscal-year budgets against the debt level when they took office. Franklin Roosevelt incurred a small increase by today’s standards in absolute terms ($236 billion) but a 1,050% relative increase as he financed recovery from the Great Depression and then fought World War II. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who each pushed for big tax cuts, increased the debt by 186% and 101%, respectively. Barack Obama, inheriting a recession, added $8.59 billion, or 74%. Donald Trump’s increase, on a similar basis, can be estimated at about 40%, as pandemic-related relief measures added to the tally.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
FACT BRIEF BY
facebook
twitter
email
email