{
  "id": 2971372,
  "title": "How Washington’s interest bill on the $40 trillion national debt exploded 14% in just 9 months",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/24/how-washingtons-interest-bill-on-the-40-trillion-national-debt",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-08-24T07:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fortune",
    "slug": "fortune",
    "url": "https://fortune.com/2026/08/24/national-debt-interest-expense-growth/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In just nine months, Washington's interest bill on the $40 trillion national debt surged by 14%, from $846 to $963 billion, marking the biggest jump among expense categories, according to the CBO's Monthly Budget Review. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid all saw smaller increases of 5%, 8%, and 8% respectively. Over the past year, interest payments skyrocketed to equal 70.1% of Social Security outlays, up from 64.9% a year ago. The increase in interest expense can be attributed to two factors: a 7.3% surge in the federal debt, which reached $40 trillion, and a steep rise in interest rates, with yields on 2-year Treasury Notes climbing from 3.94% to 4.18% and 10-year notes from 4.37% to 4.69%. The Treasury plans to buy large amounts of 10-year Treasuries to curb interest costs, but this stop-gap measure won't address the fundamental issue of the government's ever-growing borrowing. The interest explosion has received limited coverage, but it remains the most significant force behind the rising interest costs.",
  "summary": "The huge increase in interest expense has two sources.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}