Coronavirus Inflates National Debt

The pandemic has caused a lot of damage to the country and economy, including the national debt and federal budget. It has created many disturbances in the economy, and the government’s response to the situation has not improved matters. In fact, the budget deficit is greater than it has ever been in the past eighty years. Despite all this, though, it appears that Americans aren’t any more concerned about it than they have been recent.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in June, only 47% of American adults considered the budget deficit a big problem. This is a decrease from 55%, as it was in the fall of 2018. According to the Treasury Department, while this percentage has gone down, the deficit has grown from around $780 billion to $2.8 trillion over almost the same period.

The budget deficit was one of ten issues included in the survey, and it came out to be roughly in the middle regarding the big problems in the country. The number of Americans who considered it a very big problem was higher than the number of people who thought the same about illegal immigration or climate change. However, it was also lower than the number of people who considered the global pandemic and government ethics to be greater problems.

Demographically, there wasn’t a significant difference between people with different genders, incomes, or education level. However, Republicans did tend to think of the deficit as a very big problem as compared to liberal Democrats. Furthermore, opinions also varied with age. 60% of U.S. adults aged 65 and over thought of the budget deficit as a big problem.

A little more than half of the adults aged 50 to 64 years, 43% of adults aged 30 to 49 years, and 33% of adults aged 18 to 29 years also thought the same. Therefore, concerns regarding the deficit fell as ages decreased.