About this site

NationalDebtFacts tracks the US national debt as it moves and puts it in context: what it comes to per person, how it compares with the size of the economy, what the interest really costs, and what it would buy in assets no government can issue.

Who writes this

The site is written and maintained by its operator, Roman, together with the small team around him. It is an independent project, not a newsroom and not a government service. The aim is narrow: show the debt accurately, say where every figure comes from, and answer the questions the number raises. If you write to us with a correction, one of us reads it.

Why build this when a debt clock already exists

The well-known one is a remarkable piece of work and has been running for years. It is also close to unreadable on a phone, explains none of its methodology, and answers no questions in words. It puts hundreds of numbers on one screen and tells you nothing about any of them.

This site keeps the density that makes a debt clock feel serious, and then adds the three things it leaves out: a clear order so you can tell which number matters, a named source for every figure, and plain-English answers to the questions people actually ask.

How it works

The pages are static files, and the live metal prices are fetched by a small function on our side rather than by your browser, so the price feed never sees your IP address. The debt figure is fetched from the Treasury when the site is built, twice a day, so your browser never contacts the Treasury either. The figures are passed on unchanged. Crypto prices come from CoinMarketCap when the site is built. Running it costs the same whether ten people visit or ten million.

The whole chain, including which figures are live and which are estimates, is documented on the methodology page.

The news page is built the same way. A script checks the official sources twice a day and fills a fixed template with the figures of each release, with a link back to the source. No item is written by an AI model, and none is rewritten from another publication.

Independence

This site is not affiliated with the US government, the Treasury or usdebtclock.org. It takes no position on tax or spending policy. The figures come from official sources and are passed on without adjustment. Where a choice has to be made, such as which population to divide the debt by, the reasoning is shown rather than hidden.

It carries no advertising today and earns nothing. It is planned to be funded by advertising, and any ads will be supplied by Google AdSense and labelled. No figure is sponsored, and no advertiser has any say over what is published or how it is presented.

Corrections

If a number here is wrong, it should be fixed. Every figure traces back to a named public dataset, so an error can be checked rather than argued about.