As of Oct. 31, the U.S. government owed $5,482,200,000,000 to foreign interests, according to the Treasury. That was up from $5,476,200,000 as of Sept. 30.
The foreign debt of the U.S. government equaled $47,482 for each of the 115,459,000 full-time workers (including full-time government workers) there were in the United States in October, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Similarly, it equaled $47,706 for each of the 114,916,000 households the Census Bureau estimated there were in the United States in September.
At the end of January 2009, when President Barack Obama was inaugurated, the U.S. government owed $3,071,700,000,000 to foreign interests. Since then the U.S. government’s debt to foreign interests has increased by $2,410,500,000,000—or 78 percent.
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