Many Americans are unhappy about years of higher-than-normal inflation that have sapped buying power and reduced standards of living.
Now, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) demonstrates that a difficult culprit will make you feel poorer over the next few decades: The nearly $35 trillion (and growing) national debt.
At its current trajectory, the rising national debt—and the increasing burden of making interest payments on it—will reduce Americans’ future income growth by 12 percent over the next 30 years, the CBO projects in a new report. That means the average person will earn about $5,000 less annually than they would in a scenario where the debt was not growing.
“This is the result of crowding out, whereby a higher national debt reduces private investment and slows income growth,” explain the number crunchers at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit that advocates for reducing the…
