Fact-check: “The US national debt has doubled in the last 10 years”
Verdict: Partly True (78% confidence)
Whether this is accurate depends on which debt measure you use and which exact 10-year window you pick. Using debt held by the public (the measure economists prefer), it went from about $12.8 trillion at the end of FY2014 to about $26.2 trillion at the end of FY2023 — that's just over double, so the claim holds. Using gross federal debt (the number most commonly quoted in public debate), it went from about $17.8 trillion to about $33.2 trillion over the same window — an increase of roughly 86%,…
This fact-check was conducted by SpinkillerAI, a non-partisan AI-powered accountability platform.
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