Visualization of the National Debt

These days the average American household has an average of $15,799 in debt, a number found by dividing the total revolving debt in the United Sates ($793.1 billion as of May 2011 as listed in the Federal Reserve’s July 2011 report on consumer credit) by the estimated number of households carrying credit card debt (50.2 million). Relatively, the average student after college has an estimated $24,000 in debt–based on the amount taken out in loans–according to the New York Times in the year 2009. In combination with the poor state of the economy and the high unemployment rate, these numbers are shocking to behold–enough so that the total United States federal debt of over 14 trillion dollars becomes a crippling figure by comparison. So how daunting exactly, is the U.S. debt? 

Let’s see if we can’t put things into perspective for you. 

• One hundred dollars is the most counterfeited money denomination in the world, but a single bill can fit in your wallet.
• Ten thousand dollars is enough for a great vacation or can buy you a used car.  It is the approximate amount made during one year of work by the average human on this earth.
• One million dollars will see you complete about 92 years of work.
• One hundred million dollars can fit comfortably on an ISO/Military standard sized pallet.
• One billion dollars is about ten pallets in size–about enough to fill a 15 by 8 foot room, wall-to-wall.
• One trillion dollars will span and fill an entire football field of double stacked pallets of $100 million dollars each, full of $100 dollar bills. If you spent $1 million dollars a day since Jesus was born, you would not have spent $1 trillion dollars by now. Unless the government fixes the budget, US national debt (think of it as their credit card bill) will topple $15 trillion by Christmas 2011. This amount passes 20% of the entire world’s combined Gross Domestic Product.
• Finally, $114.5 trillion dollars is the amount the U.S owes in unfunded liabilities, meaning the money they do not have to fully fund the Medicare, Medicare Prescription Drug Program, Social Security, Military, and civil servant pensions. Realistically, if you live in the USA this is also your personal credit card bill; you are responsible along with everyone else to pay this back.

Also, check out /, which constantly updates to show the current United States gross national debt, along with your own share of it. 

Talk about a government for the People, by the People. We should come up with a new slogan for the U.S. Government, “The U.S. Government, devaluing the dollar one bail out at a time.”