The private debt of America’s 325 million population has remained remarkably stable, even as the U.S. Treasury debt is coming under increasing criticism. The latter has doubled from $10 trillion at the beginning of the great financial crisis in 2008-2010 to an expected $20 trillion by the end of President Barack Obama’s second term in January 2017.
In fact, the nation’s cumulative personal debt, which reached in excess of 6% per capita during the 1990s, has seen a reversal to a near 5%-per-person surplus. While this places the United States just behind Japan’s 12% savings rate, it has become increasingly indicative of the personal debt fears that seem to have embraced America’s population.