US President Joe Biden, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, speaks during a meeting with his cabinet at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2022.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
The U.S. government raked in another half-trillion dollars in red ink in the first quarter of its fiscal year, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.
For the period from October 2023 to December 2023, the total budget deficit reached nearly $510 billion, after a deficit of $129.4 billion in December alone, which is 52% higher than last year. The jump prompted helplessness Total government debt It exceeded $34 trillion for the first time.
Compared to last year, which saw a final deficit of $1.7 trillion, 2024 will be even hotter.
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, for example, the total difference between spending and revenue was $421.4 billion. On an unadjusted basis, that’s an $89 billion increase between fiscal year 2024 and last year. Adjusted for calendar factors, the Treasury Department said the change between the two years is actually $97 billion. The December deficit was more than $34 billion higher than a year earlier, driven by higher Social Security payments and interest costs.
If the current pace continues, 2024 will end with a deficit of just over $2 trillion.
The deficit has continued to accumulate despite the Biden administration’s assurances that the inflation reduction law, in addition to lowering prices, will work to lower prices. Shaving “hundreds of billions” off the deficit.
While inflation fell, Labor Department data on Thursday showed the CPI rose another 0.3% in December, pushing the 12-month rate to 3.4%, above the Wall Street consensus and above the Fed’s 2% target. .
With interest rates rising as the Federal Reserve fights inflation, Financing costs To the government in 2023, approximately $660 billion. Debt as a percentage of GDP rose to 120% in the third quarter of 2023.
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