Admit it––you probably have a few bills you forget to pay now and then. Don’t we all? This may make you feel better: the U.S. national debt is $19.5 trillion (about one-third of the global total).
But how do we make sense of that number? This infographic compares it to everyday things to really understand how much debt we’re talking about.
The national debt is larger than the biggest 500 public companies in America by a landslide, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. The top 10 companies on the S&P 500 are valued at $3.9 trillion, and that’s still only a fraction of the debt.
To put it in even more stunning terms, the national debt is more than all the world’s physical cash, gold, silver and bitcoin combined. Think about it this way: If you took all of the world’s physical currency, physical gold, above-ground silver and cryptocurrency, it would only pay for 65% of the nation’s debt.
While you may not have to think about trillions of dollars of debt, it’s statistically likely that you or someone you know is dealing with student loan debt. Find out more about the crisis here.