Category: Economy

Important but surprising facts regarding Economy

Review of Green American Style

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Super facts are important and true facts that nevertheless are surprising to a lot of people, they are mind-blowing or misunderstood or disputed among non-experts. They are special facts that many of us can learn something important from or perhaps challenge us. However, I also make posts that are not super facts but feature other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation. The book is:

Green, American Style: Becoming Earth-Friendly and Reaping the Benefits by Anna M. Clark

Below I am listing the two editions on Amazon of this book. I bought the paperback version.

  • Hardback –  Publisher : BakerBooks (January 1, 2010), ISBN-10 : 1616643242, ISBN-13 : 978-1616643249, item weight : 1.01 pounds. It costs $10.95 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Paperback –  Publisher : BakerBooks (April 1, 2010), ISBN-10 : 0801013348, ISBN-13 : 978-0801013348, 253 pages, item weight : 10.9 ounces, dimensions : 5.25 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches. It costs $4.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front cover of Green, American Style: Becoming Earth-Friendly and Reaping the Benefits by Anna M. Clark.
The front cover of Green, American Style: Becoming Earth-Friendly and Reaping the Benefits by Anna M. Clark. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardback version of the book.

Amazon’s Description of the Book

Americans of all stripes are finding their footing in the green movement. What was once a road less traveled is quickly becoming a superhighway as those who were once reluctant find that going green is not about giving up. It’s about gaining more money, time, opportunity, health, and well-being even as we preserve the American lifestyle in a rapidly changing world. Green, American Style is a guide to going green and loving it. Its uniquely American perspective means it speaks to readers from their own paradigm, taking into account the largely conservative values of much of this country, its democratic and capitalistic history, and its resistance to reining in.

More than a list of ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, this book explores the green movement from the diverse perspectives of business, faith, and lifestyle, recognizing the economic, physical, and spiritual benefits of sustainable living.

This is my five star review for the book Green, American Style

Save Money Become Healthier and Save the Planet too

The author, Anna Clark, is the founder and President of the company EarthPeople LLC. In this book she presents hundreds of ways companies and citizens can become more environmentally sustainable, while becoming healthier and save money at the same time. Becoming “green” does not have to be a great sacrifice, and you don’t need to adopt a certain environmentalist attitude, or politics. There are practical advantages to you personally as you adopt a greener lifestyle. She refers to this as the green advantage. She is also stating that Green is patriotic. It is our best chance to preserve our way of life for the future.

Climate Change / Global Warming is happening, and the scientific evidence clearly shows that we are the cause. We know it is not natural. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a negative emotional reaction to this reality. Instead of arguing about this issue, and risking turning off some readers, the author focuses on the positives of sustainability and the things we can all agree on. Sustainability is not a political decision but a better way to live.

She is also not an all-or-nothing advocate. For example, she says that you can eat less meat, but you don’t need to become a vegan if that is not what you want. I can add to that that the average American eats 220 pounds of meat per year, which corresponds to 330 million tons of carbon emissions, or 5-6% of our total emissions in the US. If you eat 110 pounds of meat instead of 220 pounds of meat you have removed 50% of those emissions. If you go from eating 10 pounds of meat per year to being vegan you’ve reduced only 3%. All-or-nothing is hard and there are so many other ways that you can reduce your impact on the environment. You choose what fits you and reaching for the low-hanging fruit is smart.

At the same time, she does not shy away from the problems. She mentions the danger of being so dependent on oil, not the least considering national security, and the need for developing alternatives, preferably clean energy sources. She discusses freshwater scarcity, the world losing species at a rate thousands of times faster than the natural extinction rate, and the dangers of excessive carbon dioxide levels. She discusses the many toxins in our environment and how to avoid them.

In the book she describes her interviews and interactions with several important personalities in sustainability including the billionaire and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and the billionaire and CEO Roger Barnett. She advocates for eco-capitalism and for LEED certified buildings. She herself lives in a platinum level LEED certified residence. The book features a lot of resources and hundreds of links, and the second part of the book lists 85 easy ways to save the planet and money at the same time. It is not that strange. If you save energy and gasoline, and you waste less and you don’t buy things you don’t really need, you’ll save the planet and money too. In fact, you can easily save thousands of dollars. You may not know how to do that, but the book will tell you.

She also lists 25 ways to remodel your home to make it greener and saving energy. I found that we have already done several of the things listed. She also discusses gardening and composting. I can add that she correctly states that EVs not only save you gas money, but they are significantly cleaner than regular cars even with dirty grids. Due to some untrue rumors, there is some confusions about that. I can add that EVs has come a long way since this book was published.

The author also talked about the environmental studies program at St. Marks School of Texas, the school our boys attended. We live next to that school. This was more of a fun and for me personal portion of the book. The book also features some warnings. When you go shopping, there are third party-verification labels and non-specific generic labels that don’t mean anything such as “natural”, “cage free”, and “free range”. Be a smart shopper.

In summary, this book may be a bit old, but it contains a lot of useful and helpful information that is still relevant today. Therefore, I highly recommend it to everyone. You certainly don’t have to be an environmentalist to put the advice in the book to practice and save some money, become a bit healthier and save the planet at the same time.

The back cover of Green, American Style: Becoming Earth-Friendly and Reaping the Benefits by Anna M. Clark.
The back cover of Green, American Style: Becoming Earth-Friendly and Reaping the Benefits by Anna M. Clark. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.

About the Author

Photo of Anna M. Clark author of Green, American Style. There is also summary describing her. "Anna Clark is president of EarthPeople (www.earthpeopleco.com), a consulting and communications firm that helps organizations of all sizes save money and bolster their brands through profitable green strategies. A featured blogger for Greenbiz.com and SustainLane.com, Anna writes on topics ranging from green living to leadership. Anna lives with her family in Dallas in one of the first residences in Texas to earn a platinum LEED-certified rating from the US Green Building Council."

Anna Clark is president of EarthPeople (www.earthpeopleco.com), a consulting and communications firm that helps organizations of all sizes save money and bolster their brands through profitable green strategies. A featured blogger for Greenbiz.com and SustainLane.com, Anna writes on topics ranging from green living to leadership. Anna lives with her family in Dallas in one of the first residences in Texas to earn a platinum LEED-certified rating from the US Green Building Council. For the more on all things green, visit www.annamclark.com.

Click below to visit her web sites.

https://www.annamclark.com

https://www.earthpeopleco.com

What is Climate Capitalism

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Super facts are important and true facts that nevertheless are surprising to a lot of people, mind-blowing, or misunderstood or disputed among non-experts. They are special facts that we all can learn something important from.

However, I also make posts that are not super facts but feature other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation. The book is:

Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi

I should say that I am part of a book club and we recently read two books “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein” as well as “Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi”. They were supposed to be contrasts.

Naomi Klein’s book was anti-capitalism and Akshat Rathi’s book was pro-capitalism, or rather pro-climate-capitalism, meaning a type of capitalism that takes into consideration that polluting the atmosphere for everyone should not be without any type of cost to the polluter. I liked Akshat Rathi’s book, but I had a hard time with Naomi Klein’s book because I found it to be very ideological, filled with strong opinions I could not agree with, a lot of misinformation, and it was very pessimistic and negative. I gave it two stars and wrote a detailed review on Amazon as to why. However, I am not publishing that review here. You can read my Amazon review for Naomi Klein’s book This Changes Everything by clicking here.

The book I am reviewing here is Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi.

Below I am listing the four versions of this book. I bought the hardback version.

  • Hardback –  Publisher : Greystone Books (March 12, 2024), ISBN-10 : 1778401856, ISBN-13 : 978-1778401855, 272 pages, item weight : 1.05 pounds, dimensions : 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches. It costs $13.84 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Paperback –  Publisher : John Murray (June 20, 2024), ISBN-10 : 1529329949, ISBN-13 : 978-1529329940, 272 pages, item weight : 6.8 ounces, dimensions : 5.04 x 1.1 x 7.72 inches. It costs $ 12.69 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle –  Publisher : Greystone Books (March 12, 2024), ASIN : B0CHH9KQ23, 253 pages, it costs $13.15 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Audiobook – Publisher : Tantor Media (April 16, 2024), ASIN : B0CZYVNYDC, Listening length : 7 hours and 50 minutes. $0.00 with membership. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
The front cover of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi
The front cover of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardback version of the book.

Amazon’s Description of the Book

“An important read for anyone in need of optimism about our ability to build a clean energy future.”—BILL GATES

“Illuminating, incisive, and deeply reported.”—DAVID WALLACE-WELLS, New York Times-bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth

Our age will be defined by the climate emergency. Contrary to the doomist narrative that’s taken hold about the climate emergency, the world has already begun deploying the solutions needed to deal with it. On a journey across five continents, Climate Capitalism tracks the unlikely heroes driving the fight against climate change. From the Chinese bureaucrat who did more to make electric cars a reality than Elon Musk, to the Danish students who helped to build the world’s longest-operating wind turbine, or the American oil executive building the technology that can reverse climate damages, we meet the people working to scale technologies that are finally able to bend the emissions curve.

Through stories that bring people, policy and technology together, Akshat Rathi reveals how the green economy is not only possible, but profitable. This inspiring blend of business, science, and history provides the framework for ensuring that future generations can live in prosperity and that the wheels of progress don’t falter.

This is my five star review for the book Climate Capitalism

Climate Capitalism

Blaming capitalism for climate change is simplistic. Capitalism and the “free market” work within a framework of laws. If there were no laws and everyone could just steal and kill each other, you would have miserable anarchy not a free market. However, the market could be framed by different kinds of laws and regulation. In other words, it can come in different flavors.

The book talks about “economic externalities”. A negative externality is when economic activity harms society. An example is pollution and climate change. Is the free market really “free” or “functional” if people are harmed by the economic activity of others? However, you can correct climate change related market failures, for example, by putting a price on carbon. Innovation and technological developments have been crucial in taking us in the right direction toward solving the climate change problem, and so have markets of scale, competition in the market, good policy and the right type of regulated capitalism. This book argues for what the author calls climate capitalism.

The book features a lot of enlightening and inspirational stories about innovators and business leaders who have accomplished amazing feats that are bringing us closer to solving the climate crisis. Wan Gang, a Chinese inventor, business leader, and official who got the Chinese Electric Vehicle revolution going, like Elon Musk did in the West. Sinha, the Indian entrepreneur and the success of solar power. Birol, the Turkish politicians fighting for clean energy and thereby addressing the two biggest challenges of the century: climate change and access to energy for all.

He tells us about Bill Gates efforts to use business and philanthropy to address climate change. He discusses the promise (and disappointments) of carbon capture and storage. The amazing success of a Danish fossil fuel company evolving into a renewable energy company. He tells us about Capitalists buying and selling shares in a smart way to direct the actions of companies, and he explains why plain divestment strategies does not do much to hurt companies fundamental business. There is also a chapter on campaigners and activists. The author states that democracy can be the biggest way to rein in the excesses of capitalism.

He also tells us about fossil fuel companies that behaved very badly. The oil industry knew about the link between fossil fuel burning and global warming as far back as 1959 but chose to hide it and spread misinformation about climate change. In 1989 the fossil fuel industry formed the Global Climate Coalition, GCC, only a few months after the UN had established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The five leading oil companies in the GCC, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and ConocoPhillips publicly spent at least 3.6 billion dollars on advertising and 2 billion dollars on government lobbying (in reality a lot more). Even though all oil companies have since accepted the overwhelming science of climate change and the role fossil fuels play in it, many haven’t quite accepted the changes that will be needed to truly tackle the problem. And the misinformation they spread still lives on.

In summary, the book contains a lot of interesting information that is both frustrating and hopeful. A lot of things have gone wrong, and a lot of things are going wrong, but we are beginning to turn things around. The recent astonishing worldwide success of renewable energy and EVs and the fact that a lot of countries, especially developed countries, have succeeded in significantly lowering their emissions while growing their economies, is a sign of that. The book is also captivating and easy to read, and it is well organized. Akshat Rathi is clearly a great author. I highly recommend this interesting, optimistic and fun read.

Praise For Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi
The back cover of Climate Capitalism: Winning the Race to Zero Emissions and Solving the Crisis of Our Age by Akshat Rathi. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.
To see the Super Facts click here

Super Rich

Superfact 120: The amount of wealth owned by the billionaires is roughly double as much as the poorest half of the world’s population. The amount of wealth owned by the 12 richest billionaires is more than the wealth of the poorest 50% of the world’s population. The richest 1% of the global population owns approximately 38% to 45% of the world’s total wealth.

Esther’s writing prompt: July 15th : Rich

Click here or here  to join in.

A one hundred US Dollar bill sailing through a cloudy sky. | Super Rich
US 100 dollar bills falling through the air Shutterstock Asset id: 2555911235 by Caito

There are at the moment of this writing 3,428 dollar billionaires in the world worth 20.1 trillion dollars together. For comparison the poorest 50% of the world’s population holds between $9 trillion to $12 trillion dollars of wealth (about half). According to this report the amount of wealth owned by the poorest half of the world is less than the amount owned by just the 12 richest billionaires. By the time you read this the numbers have probably changed (likely upwards). You can also read more in Wikipedia.

I am specifying that it is in dollars and not let’s say in the Iranian Rial. With respect to the Iranian Rial, I am also a billionaire, and you are probably too (if you own a phone or computer). One dollar can buy roughly 1,300,000 to 1,600,000 IRR. You just need $700 to be a billionaire in the Iranian Rial.

This is a bar graph showing the number of billionaires and combined wealth starting in 2013 and ending in 2026.
World’s billionaires. Number and total wealth by year. Trillions of dollars. The graph comes from here. <<Link-6>> Katharina Buchholz. Cropped and edited by User:Timeshifter using freeware IrfanView., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I should say that initially I was just going to list interesting statistics about the super-rich. However, I found myself surprised by the statistics, and I am sure I am not the only one. Therefore, I picked a couple of facts I decided super facts.

The ten richest billionaires in the World

The numbers below are from Forbes Magazine. To see a list of all billionaires in the world, click here. To see a list with numbers that are updated minute by minute, click here.

  • Elon Musk – 839 billion dollars – source Tesla, SpaceX
  • Larry Page – 257 billion dollars – source Google
  • Sergey Brin – 237 billion dollars – source Google
  • Jeff Bezos – 224 billion dollars – source Amazon
  • Mark Zuckerberg – 222 billion dollars – source Facebook
  • Larry Ellison – 190 billion dollars – source Oracle
  • Bernard Arnault & family – 171 billion dollars – source LVMH
  • Jensen Huang – 154 billion dollars – semiconductors
  • Warren Buffet – 149 billion dollars – source Berkshire Hathaway
  • Amancio Ortega – 148 billion dollars – source Zara

Wealth share of the richest 1%

The richest 1% of the global population owns approximately 38% to 45% of the world’s total wealth, which is more than what 95% of humanity own according to Oxfam. The richest 1% of the global population is not about billionaires, it may very well include you and me. Our World in Data has collected and analyzed the statistics for each country in the world. The top richest 1% in the United States own 34.78% of the wealth in the United States. The top richest 1% in Russia own 48.99% of the wealth in Russia. The top richest 1% in Sweden own 27.49% of the wealth in Sweden. The top richest 1% in the Netherlands own 13.98% of the wealth in the Netherlands. See the graphs below from Our World in Data.

This is a world map showing the share of wealth owned by the richest 1% of the population in each country. The darker the color, the greater the wealth of the 1% in that country. | Super Rich
The share of wealth owned by the richest 1% of the population. Wealth is defined as the total value of non-financial and financial assets (housing, land, deposits, bonds, equities, etc.) held by households, minus their debts. Data source: World Inequality Database (WID.world) (2026) – Learn more about this data OurWorldinData.org/economic-inequality | CC BY

As you can see from the graphs below the extreme inequality is nothing new. Europe was extremely unequal in the 19th century. The 1% owned 58.01% of the wealth in 1900. The United States was relatively equal in 1978 when the 1% owned 21.79% of the wealth. Russia became very unequal since 1995. I suggest that you play around with the graphs yourself .

The graphs show the share of wealth owned by the 1% for Russia, Europe and the United States from 1820 to 2024.
The historic share of wealth owned by the 1% for different countries around the world, starting in 1820. Data source: World Inequality Database (WID.world) (2026) – Learn more about this data OurWorldinData.org/economic-inequality | CC BY

ABBA’s Money, Money, Money

Note: This post is not an implicit suggestion that we should tax billionaires more or less, and not about how or whether we should solve inequality, and it is not about politics. It is just surprising statistics regarding wealth and the reality of inequality.

My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts

To see the Other Super Facts click here

College Tuition Tripled in 25 years

Super fact 92 : College tuition and fees increased by 207% between 1997 and 2022, which corresponds to a tripling.  Since 2022 it has continued to increase. Adjusted for inflation this corresponds to a 60% increase, more than any other major economic sector.

A man is being sucked into a hole filled with money. | College Tuition Tripled in 25 years
Students are sucked into a hole with money for college tuition. Shutterstock Asset id: 335014478 by alphaspirit.it.
The graph shows the percentage increase of college tuition and fees, Day care and preschool, medical care. Household energy, Housing, Food and beverages, public transport, new cars, Clothing, Computer software and accessories, toys, Televisions.
Data source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2026). OurWorldInData.org/technological-change. Note: Some services such as medical care are not adjusted for quality, some treatments have decreased in price rather than increased. To visit the original page for this graph click here or on the picture.

To read about the graph above in greater detail click here. To read more about the increase in college tuition click here, here, here, or here. To calculate the inflation for different periods of time click here (the inflation calculator).

It should be noted in the graphs above that Televisions have decreased in price by 98%, which seems implausible. However, it is not an April 1st joke. It is not April 1st in Texas yet (where I live). The reason for the large decline in price of Televisions is that quality is taken into account. 20 years ago, you could not easily buy the kind of TVs you can today and if you did you would cost you an enormous amount of money. You get a lot more for a few hundred bucks than you did 20 years ago.

This is a superfact because it is true, shocking, and important to how we live.

Why have college Tuition become so expensive?

College tuition has increased so much due to administrative bloat, increased student loan availability, declining state funding for public institutions, and heavy spending on amenities to attract students.

An example of heavy spending on amenities is college sports. I studied at a university called Uppsala University, which is a very large University founded in 1477. It is considered one of the world’s top Universities (top 50). However, they do not have any competitive teams associated with the University itself. In 1987 I was sent as an exchange student (electrical engineering) to Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve University has some competitive teams associated with the University but only a small college football stadium.

However, I quickly came to realize that many American universities have huge college football and baseball stadiums. This is an added expense that you rarely encounter in the rest of the world. Universities are for studies and for learning. Sports teams, whether it is soccer, or American football is a separate issue.

Aerial photo of a large football stadium. | College Tuition Tripled in 25 years
BLOOMINGTON, US – Aug 04, 2025: Side-angle drone view of Indiana University Memorial Stadium with field, stands, and cityscape on a clear summer day. . – Shutterstock Asset id: 2700467103
To see the other Super Facts click here

US National Debt is Ballooning

Super fact 76 : The current US national debt is a record 38.35 trillion dollars and growing despite it being peacetime and no recession. The expected GDP for 2025 is 30.6 trillion, which corresponds to a debt to GDP Ratio of 125 percent.

Hole that sucks a businessman and money | US National Debt is Ballooning
We are drowning in debt. Shutterstock Asset id: 335014478 by alphaspirit.it.

The federal government needs to borrow money to pay its bills when its ongoing spending activities and investments cannot be funded by federal revenues alone. That the national debt is growing in terms of dollars may not be shocking. There is inflation, the country is growing, and as the economy grows its ability to pay the debt increases. Therefore, the debt to GDP Ratio is a better measurement of the size of the problem as this metric relates to our ability to pay the debt back. When the debt to GDP Ratio is growing there is a real problem.

Wars and recessions tend to add to the federal debt. While debt spikes during crises, it historically receded after. The second World War is an example (see below). However, since 1980 US debt has grown without seeming to come back down. Not only does the current debt to GDP Ratio exceed the one after the Second World War, the current trends show persistent deficits even in peacetime, unlike post-WWII, making the long-term outlook scary.

The graph shows two graphs, the US gross public debt and the net public debt as a debt to GDP Ratio. Both graphs show a spike during and after World War II followed by a recovery. Since 1980 the debt started growing again reaching higher than ever levels.
The top panel shows debt deflated to 2010 dollars; the second panel shows debt as a percentage of GDP. The US debt and the US debt to GDP Ratio is at a record high, exceeding that following the Second World War and we aren’t slowing down. Note the gross public debt includes all U.S. government debt, including money it owes itself (Social Security trust fund), while net public debt subtracts the government’s financial assets. The graph is from this Wikipedia article. en:User:O18, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons.

Below is an overview of the Federal Debt as percent of the GDP starting with 1965 to the beginning of 2025. The graph does not include most of the more than 2 trillion increases in debt during 2025, including a 1 trillion increase that happened in just two months toward the end of the year. So at the end there is a missing uptick. The graph below comes from this website.

US National Debt is Ballooning

In the past we used to discuss the national debt and the national deficit a lot, and it was viewed as an important and urgent problem to solve. It was a matter of intergenerational justice. There are some big problems that we have largely solved, for example, the sulfur dioxide pollution that created acid rain has fallen by 95 percent in the US, and the emissions of ozone-depleting gases have fallen by 99 Percent. As a result, we have mostly stopped talking about those problems. However, as the problem with national debt has grown, we have not increased but decreased our attention to the problem. The fact that the debt is now more than 38 trillion dollars, or $112,000 per person in US, and keeps rising despite no wars or recessions happening is probably a shock to many. It is true, it is an important fact, and it is surprising and perhaps shocking and therefore it is a super fact. To read more about the national debt click here.

Debt to GDP Presidents

One might be curious as to how the debt changed during specific Presidencies. I took the graph above and inserted lines representing the starting and ending years for the most recent Presidents. For example, Joe Biden’s Presidency started January 20, 2021, and ended January 20, 2025. I might not have gotten it exactly right so don’t read too much into it.

I added lines for Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump.
I added the lines representing Presidents periods.

Below is a table I found online.

PresidentYears in OfficeDebt-to-GDP at StartDebt-to-GDP at EndChange (Percentage Points)
Franklin D. Roosevelt1933–1945~20%~112.9%+92.9 (WWII/Depression)
Harry S. Truman1945–1953112.9%~67.1%-45.8
Dwight D. Eisenhower1953–1961~67.1%~55.2%-11.9
Lyndon B. Johnson1963–1969~46.9%~38.6%-8.3
Jimmy Carter1977–1981~35.8%~32.5%-3.3
Ronald Reagan1981–1989~32.5%~53.1%+20.6
George H.W. Bush1989–1993~53.1%~66.1%+13.0
Bill Clinton1993–2001~66.1%~56.4%-9.7
George W. Bush2001–2009~56.4%~84.2%+27.8 (Wars/Recession)
Barack Obama2009–2017~84.2%~103.6%+19.4 (Great Recession aftermath)
Donald Trump2017–2021~103.6%~132.8% (peak in Q2 2020)+29.2 (Pandemic relief/tax cuts)
Joe Biden2021–Present~132.8% (at start of term, Q2 2020 peak)~124.3% (as of 2024)Fluctuation/slight decrease due to GDP recovery/inflation

Other Types of Debt

I should add that there are other types of debt not just federal debt / national debt (gross and net). American companies and financial institutions owe money and consumers have debt. As you can see in the graph below the debt to GDP ratio increase is true for those kinds of debts as well. We are a nation in debt. To read more about the graph below click here.

The graph shows four graphs representing Government (% of GDP) in purple, non-financial business sector-Debt (% of GDP) in red, Household - Debt (% of GDP) in blue, financial business sector (% of GDP) in green.
Debt as a percentage of GDP, United States, 1945 to 2020. Data source: US Federal Reserve, US Bureau of Economic Analysis (2020), tinyco.re/2448179 | Powered by ourWorldindata.org
To see the other Super Facts click here