Federal debt: total public debt under Ronald Reagan

The total amount the federal government owes, in the dollars of the day.

Over 1981-01-20 to 1989-01-19, measured in Millions of Dollars:

Term average

1,783,839.56 Millions of Dollars

At the start

971,174 Millions of Dollars

At the end

2,740,898 Millions of Dollars

Change

+1,769,724 Millions of Dollars

Low

971,174 Millions of Dollars (1981-04-01)

High

2,740,898 Millions of Dollars (1989-01-01)

Coverage

100% (32 observations)

Reading this series over a presidential term

Nominal dollars, no adjustment for inflation, population, or the size of the economy, so the level rises almost mechanically decade after decade and every recent term looks larger than every older one. For comparisons across terms, federal debt as a percent of GDP is the honest version of this question.

Gross debt double-counts in a sense that matters: trust-fund holdings are one part of the government owing another. It is a stock at a moment in time and says nothing about what the borrowing bought or what it costs to service.

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 Ronald Reagan caused the number to move.

What Federal debt: total public debt measures · Ronald Reagan: the whole record · Chart it · Compare with another president · The source at FRED