Look Back Or Look Ahead
$ worth of everyday goods inFederal debt measured against everything the country produces, in compared to —
type either year directly. "To" starts on the current year.
I was born in 1957 — that’s why the first year opens there. What about you? Put your own birth year in and see what a dollar has done over your lifetime. — Kerry Lutz, born 1957
Defaults to 3.2%/yr — CPI-U’s own 1913–2026 average. Drag it to try your own assumption — this is a projection, not a forecast.
what a 1957 dollar's buying power has done since, measured this way
Flip it around — a dollar in 2026, in everyday-goods terms, only stretches as far as 8.5¢ did back in 1957.
U.S. national debt · counting live
About $40.12 trillion, rising about $85,728 a second, or about 123% of annual output.
Rising about $85,728 a second — counted forward from the Treasury’s Sep 2, 2026 close at the past year’s pace. That is about 123% of everything the country produces in a year.
Every tick is one more claim on the same dollar you just measured.
Kerry Lutz · Financial Survival Network
Know what these numbers mean for your money — before the next move happens.
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