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The history of the United States debt ceiling deals with movements in the United States debt ceiling since it was created in 1917. Management of the United States public debt is an important part of the macroeconomics of the United States economy and finance system, and the debt ceiling is a limitation on the federal government's ability to manage the economy and finance system.
The present debt ceiling is an aggregate limit applied to nearly all federal debt, which was substantially established by the Public Debt Acts [16] [17] of 1939 and 1941. These acts have been amended subsequently to change the ceiling amount.
The debt ceiling is routinely raised to accommodate repayment of the country’s debt. The last time it was raised was in 2021. The debt ceiling was suspended last June.
On August 5, 2011, the United States debt-ceiling crisis of 2011, the credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the rating of the federal government from AAA to AA+. It was the first time the U.S. had been downgraded since it was originally given a AAA rating on its debt by Moody's in 1917. [ 37 ]
Congress set the first debt limit of $45 billion in 1939, and has had to raise that limit 103 times since, as spending has consistently outrun tax revenue. Publicly held debt was 98% of U.S. gross ...
Since the debt ceiling system was instituted in 1917, Congress has never not raised the debt ceiling. Congress has voted 78 times to raise or suspend the debt limit since 1960.
The United States debt ceiling is a legislative limit that determines how much debt the Treasury Department may incur. [23] It was introduced in 1917, when Congress voted to give Treasury the right to issue bonds for financing America participating in World War I, [24] rather than issuing them for individual projects, as had been the case in the past.
We hope you'll enjoy the following interactive series of charts on the U.S. debt ceiling from 1917 to the present day. For more information on the history of the debt ceiling, please click here.