This is probably a scary infographic for my fellow Americans. The simple fact is that the United States is becoming swamped in debt. If I remember correctly, the American Federal government is something like 16 trillion dollars in debt. And debt levels have been rising in the face of a stagnant economy.
Turns out that that’s only part of the story with state governments being swamped by 4.17 trillion dollars in addition debt. That’s 4,170,000,000,000 dollars worth of debt divided up among only 50 states.
Unsurprisingly big states like Texas, New York, and California are swamped in debt. California takes the cake with over 600 billion dollars in debt. Small and lightly populated states, like North and South Dakota, feature much smaller debt burdens. North Dakota, for example, has just over 6 billion dollars worth of debt to its name.
Interestingly, Alaska has the highest per capita debt at nearly 32,000 dollars per person! Funny, because Alaska always brags about being an independent and self-reliant state, but it turns out there are borrowing by the boat load! Nebraska has the lowest debt per person, only 4,287 dollars.
Interestingly, individuals own 1.7 trillion dollars of this debt. Hedge funds own another 1.1 trillion dollars. Banking institutions and insurance companies own most of the rest of the debt.
Check out the above map in this infographic for more information!
