Our anchor metric: total federal debt split across U.S. residents, turning a national balance sheet into a number a general reader can track.
Updated daily from U.S. Treasury and U.S. Census data. Source, formula, timestamp, freshness, and QA status are shown below. Last refreshed at the timestamp shown below.
Debt-per-taxpayer and per-voting-age figures stay off the public hero while their denominator methodology is under review. Methodology & FAQ →
Debt per person is the anchor metric on this site. It takes everything the federal government owes and splits it across the people the government represents, turning a national balance sheet into a number a general reader can track.
The result isn't a bill you'll receive or a balance you personally carry. It's a yardstick: a way to compare scale over time, then use sourced breakdowns and recurring analysis to understand what changed and which lens matters most.
Other denominators (income-tax filers, voting-age residents) yield different totals; those variants stay under methodology review and aren't published here yet. See the methodology & FAQ for sources and the freshness policy.
Each verified Treasury update adds a point to the record. The line below is built only from values we've published — it lengthens as the tracker runs.
Source: published Debt Per Person daily values (Treasury debt ÷ Census population). Historical trend depth grows over time; longer-range context will fill in as the record accumulates.
Debt per person is the anchor metric, and every public figure has to pass the same trust contract: source, formula, vintages, timestamp, freshness, and QA visible up front.
DebtPerPerson is an independent, nonpartisan informational project. The figures here are estimates for general education and are not financial, tax, investment, legal, or political advice. Debt-per-taxpayer and per-voting-age variants are still under methodology review and are not yet published as approved public metrics.
Each Friday: the latest debt-per-person figure, what moved it, and the sourced breakdown or fiscal context worth your attention that week.