Annual interest payments on US debt cross $1T: Bloomberg

The estimated yearly amount the U.S. is paying on its debt crossed $1 trillion at the end of October, a recent analysis by Bloomberg found.

These annualized interest costs — which were calculated using U.S. Treasury data on monthly outstanding debt balances and average interest — have doubled over the last 19 months, according to Bloomberg.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the U.S. paid $879 billion in interest costs on its more than $33 trillion in debt, the Treasury said.

The country’s growing debt pile and repeated partisan battles over the borrowing limit prompted Fitch Ratings to downgrade the credit rating of the U.S. from “AAA” to “AA+” earlier this year.

The downgrade came several months after President Biden and House Republicans reached a last-minute deal to raise the debt ceiling, just days before the country was expected to default.

These down-to-the-wire battles over the debt limit have “eroded confidence in fiscal management” in the U.S., Fitch said at the time.

“In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025,” the ratings agency said.