National Debt and Deficit Metrics

Candidate/context only: scoring, issue grades, member grades, report cards, rollups, leaderboards, legislative mapping, letters, calls, and action tools remain disabled.

Debt Burden / Revenue Capacity Source-Method Review

Generated: 2026-05-22T23:42:11Z

This is a review-only source-method packet for the remaining debt-burden and revenue-capacity context metrics. It does not merge metrics into the approved candidate display and does not activate scoring, issue grades, member grades, report cards, rollups, leaderboards, legislative mapping, letters, calls, or action tools.

Review Summary

ItemStatus
Rows Reviewed3
Conditional Source-Method Rows3
Review-Only / Not Merged Rows3
Blockers
ScoringDisabled
Release StatusCANDIDATE ONLY DEBT BURDEN SOURCE METHOD REVIEW NO SCORING
MilestoneDEBT BURDEN SOURCE METHOD REVIEW READY

Candidate Source-Method Rows

Metric ID Candidate Metric Coverage Dimension Source Candidate Method Direction Review Limitation Note Status / Notes
NDD-MET-021 Federal debt held by the public per person Debt burden context Debt held by the public nominal value paired with population estimate
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data / FRED / Census population context
Use a reviewed annual or quarterly debt-held-by-the-public nominal value and divide by a like-period population estimate. Display dollars per person as context only.

Comparison: Compare latest reviewed dollars-per-person value with the prior like-period value. Use same population source family and same frequency where possible.
Higher dollars per person generally indicates a rising nominal burden, but this is a context metric and is not scored. Per-person debt is easy to understand but can be misleading if used alone. It does not account for GDP, income, age distribution, interest rates, ownership structure, inflation, or government assets. CONDITIONAL ACCEPTABLE AFTER HUMAN APPROVAL
Reviewer decision: PENDING HUMAN REVIEW
Merge status: NOT MERGED REVIEW ONLY
NDD-MET-022 Federal debt held by the public as percent of federal receipts Debt burden / revenue capacity Debt held by the public paired with federal receipts
OMB Historical Tables / FRED / U.S. Treasury receipts
Use fiscal-year debt held by the public and federal receipts from reviewed source families. Compute debt-held-by-public divided by receipts and display as a ratio or percent.

Comparison: Compare the latest fiscal-year ratio with the prior fiscal-year ratio using like-to-like fiscal years and consistent units.
Lower or stabilizing debt-to-receipts burden is generally better; sustained increases indicate rising revenue-capacity pressure. Context-only, not scored. Debt-to-receipts can make debt scale more understandable, but annual receipts can move because of economic cycles, tax law, timing shifts, and one-time effects. CONDITIONAL ACCEPTABLE AFTER HUMAN APPROVAL
Reviewer decision: PENDING HUMAN REVIEW
Merge status: NOT MERGED REVIEW ONLY
NDD-MET-023 Gross federal debt as percent of federal receipts Debt burden / revenue capacity Gross federal debt paired with federal receipts
Treasury debt data / OMB Historical Tables / FRED / U.S. Treasury receipts
Use fiscal-year gross federal debt and federal receipts from reviewed source families. Compute gross debt divided by receipts and display as a ratio or percent.

Comparison: Compare the latest fiscal-year gross-debt-to-receipts ratio with the prior fiscal-year ratio using consistent units and like-to-like fiscal years.
Lower or stabilizing gross-debt-to-receipts burden is generally better; sustained increases indicate rising revenue-capacity pressure. Context-only, not scored. Gross debt includes intragovernmental holdings and should not be confused with debt held by the public. Public display must clearly explain the difference. CONDITIONAL ACCEPTABLE AFTER HUMAN APPROVAL
Reviewer decision: PENDING HUMAN REVIEW
Merge status: NOT MERGED REVIEW ONLY

Recommended Human Review Questions