Federal surplus or deficit as a percent of GDP under Bill Clinton

How much more the federal government spent than it took in over a fiscal year, as a share of the economy. Negative is a deficit; positive is a surplus.

Over 1993-01-20 to 2001-01-19, measured in Percent of GDP:

Term average

-0.12 Percent of GDP

At the start

-3.72 Percent of GDP

At the end

1.21 Percent of GDP

Change

+4.93 Percent of GDP

Low

-2.79 Percent of GDP (1994-01-01)

High

2.3 Percent of GDP (2000-01-01)

Coverage

100% (8 observations)

Reading this series over a presidential term

The fiscal-year convention matters for attribution: a President inherits a budget already enacted for the fiscal year that starts eight months into the term. The attribution lag control is the place to express your own view about that. One point per year, so each term has about four.

Annual and slow to publish. It reports the gap, not what was on either side of it, and the gap moves on its own with the business cycle: tax receipts fall and unemployment payments rise in a recession before any policy changes.

These are the observed values over the window above, and nothing more. This site does not say which direction is better, and none of this is a claim that Bill Clinton caused the number to move.

What Federal surplus or deficit as a percent of GDP measures · Bill Clinton: the whole record · Chart it · Compare with another president · The source at FRED