> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.foodconsumer.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# U.S. Debt Clock Real Time
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/us_debt_clock_real_time271120090804/
- Published: 2009-11-27T20:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T15:49:46.000Z
- Description: US national debt stands at about $12 trillion, $7.611 trillion held by the public and $4.398 trillion by the government, or $39,028 per citizen and roughly 61 percent of GDP. Social Security, defense and Medicare take the largest shares of spending; Japan and China are the biggest creditors.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Miscellaneous, Health News, #vivvo-import

By Jimmy Downs

The U.S. debt is growing at an alarming rate as shown by the U.S. debt clock. Right now, the debt held by the public is $7.611 trillion and the debt held by the U.S. Government is $4.398 trillion and together there is $12 trillion in U.S. national debt. Each citizen shares $39,028\. Watch the us debt clock real time. If you can't see anything, visit [U.S. Debt Clock](http://www.usdebtclock.org/?ref=foodconsumer.org)  

The United States has a Gross Domestic Product of about 14 trillion dollars. That is, the ratio of the debt held by the public to the GDP is about 61 %, the 27th highest debt-to-public-debt ratio out of 125 countries, according to wikipedia.  

What is the National debt?  

The national debt is the money owned by the U.S. government to creditors.  

Why do we have a national debt?  

Debt is created when the government spends more money than the treasury could bring in in taxes.  

Where does the money go?  

The federal government spends money in many categories such as medicaid (7%), medicare (16%), social security (21%), defense (20%).  

Who holds the debt?  

The public (states, corporations, individuals, and foreign governments) holds a portion of the U.S. national debt in the form of treasury bill, treasury notes, US savings bonds, and state and local government series securities. The rest is held by the federal government.

Where does the money come to balance the U.S. National Debt?

The two largest creditors are Japan and mainland China. A large portion of the national debt is also owned by oil exporters including Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.