US total public debt outstanding · United States · as of 2026-10-01

US total public debt outstanding (United States) rose 0.22% in 2026-10-01, an unusually large daily move

US total public debt outstanding for United States was 40,260,641,972,390 US dollars in 2026-10-01, up 88,816,871,050 US dollars (+0.22%) from 40,171,825,101,340 in 2026-09-30; that change ranks in the 99th percentile of daily changes recorded since 1993-04-01.

DerivedCandidateMetric page

What changed

US total public debt outstanding

40.26TUS dollars+0.22%

Latest: 40.26T in 2026-10-01 obs 411173
Previous: 40.17T in 2026-09-30 obs 411174
Change: +88.82B US dollars
History: 8405 observations, 1993-04-01 to 2026-10-01

How unusual

Against its own history

Robust z: 18.71
Change percentile: 99th of 8403 earlier absolute changes
Value percentile: 100th of earlier values
Median change: 868.47M (scale 4.7B, mad)
Second difference: 13.95B (z 1.50)
Slope divergence: 14.89
Rarity: last larger move 41 periods ago (2026-08-04); new series high

Confidence and status

Record

Relevance: 0.332
Confidence: 57%
Status: published
Discovered: 2026-10-05 00:10 UTC
Expires: 2026-11-04 00:10 UTC
Model: relevance_v1+insight_text_v1
Validation: passed
Causal level: candidate

Candidate: no reviewed relationship supports a causal reading. Agreement among metrics is co-movement, not cause.

Why now

Relevance components

Derived

Statistical surprise1.00 × 0.18 = 0.179

Acceleration0.63 × 0.12 = 0.075

Breadth0.33 × 0.16 = 0.053

Graph centrality0.00 × 0.18 = 0.000

Forecast impactnot wired, 0 × 0.14

Bottleneck impactnot wired, 0 × 0.10

Historical rarity0.30 × 0.08 = 0.024

Public attentionnot wired, 0 × 0.04

Relevance0.332

Statistical surprise: the latest change of +88,816,871,050 US dollars is 18.7 robust standard deviations from the median daily change (8403 earlier changes), at the 99th percentile of absolute changes. Component 1.00, weight 0.18, contribution 0.179.
Acceleration: second-difference z 1.5; short-versus-long slope divergence 14.89. Component 0.63, weight 0.12, contribution 0.075.
Breadth: 1 of 3 related metrics (same category, Resilience) moved in the same direction as of their latest periods; 2 moved the other way. Component 0.33, weight 0.16, contribution 0.053.
Graph centrality: no graph entity carries a centrality value for this metric yet, so it reads 0. Component 0.00, weight 0.18, contribution 0.000.
Historical rarity: the last larger move was 41 periods ago, in 2026-08-04; the value is a new series high (window 20 years). Component 0.30, weight 0.08, contribution 0.024.
Forecast impact: not wired yet; reads 0. Component 0.00, weight 0.14, contribution 0.000.
Bottleneck impact: not wired yet; reads 0. Component 0.00, weight 0.10, contribution 0.000.
Public attention: not wired yet; reads 0. Component 0.00, weight 0.04, contribution 0.000.

Relevance (relevance_v1) is the weighted sum of the components: 0.332, against a candidate threshold of 0.30.

Explanation

What changed and how unusual it is

Derived

What changed. The latest current observation for US total public debt outstanding, United States, is 40,260,641,972,390 US dollars for 2026-10-01 (obs 411173). The previous period, 2026-09-30, recorded 40,171,825,101,340 US dollars (obs 411174). The change is +88,816,871,050 US dollars, or +0.22%. The metric is classified as contextual, so the change carries no better or worse reading on its own.

How unusual. Against the 8403 earlier daily changes since 1993-04-01, the median change is +868,471,183 US dollars and the robust spread (scaled median absolute deviation) is 4,700,186,962, giving a robust z-score of 18.7. The absolute change sits at the 99th percentile of earlier absolute changes; the value itself sits at the 100th percentile of earlier values. The last larger move was +89,212,233,761 US dollars in 2026-08-04 (obs 254438, obs 254439), 41 periods ago. The value is a new high for the series, above 40,175,641,071,634 US dollars in 2026-08-31 (obs 254419).

Acceleration. The change in the change (second difference) is +13,946,403,276 US dollars, a robust z of 1.5 against earlier second differences. The slope over the last 3 periods is +81,843,669,412 US dollars per period against +11,879,250,928 over the last 10, a divergence of 14.89 change-scale units.

Templated from stored numbers, no AI. Citations link to the evidence table below.

AI explanation

Modeled interpretation

Modeled

Explanation generated from Humanity Vector's structured data and evidence graph. Calculations and source provenance are independently stored and viewable. Model grok-4.3, prompt version 1.0.0, run a90d59c1-e13f-4dda-996e-b6349daa125a. Every number in this text was checked against stored evidence before display.

Explanation

The data are consistent with an increase between the two dates recorded in [observation:411173] and [observation:411174]. Both entries are labeled observed.

Alternative explanation (skeptic pass)

The data are consistent with normal end-of-period accounting adjustments.

Why now

The pair of daily observations became available for the most recent date in the record.

What to watch

Subsequent daily readings of US total public debt outstanding referenced to [observation:411173] and [observation:411174].

Affected systems

Supporting metrics

Metric	Latest	Change	Evidence
US federal receipts, monthlycategory	360.03B US dollars (2026-08-01)	+26.02B (+7.79%)	obs 409185, obs 263459

No graph relationships cited; related metrics were found by shared category.

Counter-evidence

What points the other way

2 related metrics moved the other way as of their latest periods:

US federal interest expense, monthly: -19,805,006,561 US dollars (-16.84%) to 97,768,569,546 US dollars in 2026-08-01 (obs 263151, obs 263150)
US federal outlays, monthly: -239,465,915,402 US dollars (-31.25%) to 526,829,688,119 US dollars in 2026-08-01 (obs 409184, obs 409183)

10 related metrics have no comparable change and did not count either way.

Limits: the score compares period-over-period changes of current rows only; earlier vintages are not compared. Related metrics were found by shared category, not by a tested mechanism, so agreement among them does not establish cause.

US federal interest expense, monthly moved against this insight.
US federal outlays, monthly moved against this insight.

What to watch

Measurable indicators

The next US total public debt outstanding observation (2026-10-02): a change no larger than the median daily change of +868,471,183 US dollars, or a move back the other way, would mean the latest change has normalised.
US federal receipts, monthly, currently 360,032,735,841 US dollars in 2026-08-01 (obs 409185): a move the other way lowers the breadth component.
Revisions: a revised 2026-10-01 value would arrive as a new observation row (the current row is observation 411173) and trigger a rescore.
Expiry: this insight expires 30 days after discovery unless a newer period supersedes it, and earlier if the relevance score falls below the threshold.

Evidence

Every number links here

Observed

Observation	Metric	Period	Value	Role	Series	Ingested
411173	US total public debt outstandingUSA	2026-10-01	40.26T US dollars	primary	v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny:tot_pub_debt_out_amt	2026-10-05 00:04 UTC
411174	US total public debt outstandingUSA	2026-09-30	40.17T US dollars	primary	v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny:tot_pub_debt_out_amt	2026-10-05 00:04 UTC
254438	US total public debt outstandingUSA	2026-08-04	39.83T US dollars	context	v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny:tot_pub_debt_out_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC
254439	US total public debt outstandingUSA	2026-08-03	39.74T US dollars	context	v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny:tot_pub_debt_out_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC
254419	US total public debt outstandingUSA	2026-08-31	40.18T US dollars	context	v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny:tot_pub_debt_out_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC
262801	US total public debt outstandingUSA	1993-04-01	4.23T US dollars	context	v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny:tot_pub_debt_out_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC
263151	US federal interest expense, monthlyUSA	2026-08-01	97.77B US dollars	counter	v2/accounting/od/interest_expense:month_expense_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC
263150	US federal interest expense, monthlyUSA	2026-07-01	117.57B US dollars	counter	v2/accounting/od/interest_expense:month_expense_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC
409184	US federal outlays, monthlyUSA	2026-08-01	526.83B US dollars	counter	v1/accounting/mts/mts_table_1:current_month_gross_outly_amt	2026-09-14 00:06 UTC
409183	US federal outlays, monthlyUSA	2026-07-01	766.3B US dollars	counter	v1/accounting/mts/mts_table_1:current_month_gross_outly_amt	2026-09-14 00:06 UTC
409185	US federal receipts, monthlyUSA	2026-08-01	360.03B US dollars	supporting	v1/accounting/mts/mts_table_1:current_month_gross_rcpt_amt	2026-09-14 00:06 UTC
263459	US federal receipts, monthlyUSA	2026-07-01	334.01B US dollars	supporting	v1/accounting/mts/mts_table_1:current_month_gross_rcpt_amt	2026-09-07 09:54 UTC

Feature packet (full inputs to the score)

{
  "as_of": "2026-10-01",
  "change": {
    "pct": 0.002211,
    "value": 88816871049.71875,
    "observation_ids": [
      411173,
      411174
    ]
  },
  "latest": {
    "id": 411173,
    "value": 40260641972390.03,
    "period": "2026-10-01"
  },
  "metric": {
    "id": "b6d1b078-ad94-4c75-8005-3a444f577266",
    "kind": "observed",
    "name": "US total public debt outstanding",
    "slug": "us-federal-debt-total",
    "unit": "US dollars",
    "direction": "contextual",
    "frequency": "daily",
    "category_id": "871b8b44-f97d-469c-b707-3e0b71b10b54",
    "category_name": "Resilience",
    "category_slug": "resilience",
    "geography_default": "USA",
    "frequency_normalised": "daily"
  },
  "rarity": {
    "prior_max": {
      "id": 254419,
      "value": 40175641071634.14,
      "period": "2026-08-31"
    },
    "prior_min": {
      "id": 262801,
      "value": 4225873987843.44,
      "period": "1993-04-01"
    },
    "abs_change": 88816871049.71875,
    "all_time_low": false,
    "largest_ever": false,
    "window_years": 20,
    "all_time_high": true,
    "window_periods": 7300,
    "last_larger_move": {
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      "period": "2026-08-04",
      "observation_ids": [
        254438,
        254439
      ]
    },
    "largest_in_window": false,
    "periods_since_larger_move": 41
  },
  "scores": {
    "rarity": 0.3039,
    "breadth": 0.3333,
    "surprise": 0.9964,
    "centrality": 0,
    "acceleration": 0.625,
    "forecast_impact": 0,
    "public_attention": 0,
    "bottleneck_impact": 0
  },
  "breadth": {
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    "share": 0.3333,
    "related": [
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        "name": "Constraint centrality: aluminum",
        "slug": "constraint-centrality-aluminum",
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        "relationship_ids": []
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      {
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        "name": "Constraint centrality: cement",
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      {
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      {
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      {
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      {
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      {
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      {
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        "name": "Copper production top-3 country concentration",
        "slug": "copper-top3-concentration",
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      {
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        "slug": "lithium-top3-concentration",
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      {
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        "slug": "rare-earth-top3-concentration",
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      {
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        "slug": "us-federal-interest-expense-monthly",
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        "consistent": false,
        "relationship_ids": []
      },
      {
        "via": "category",
        "name": "US federal outlays, monthly",
        "slug": "us-federal-outlays-monthly",
        "unit": "US dollars",
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        "change_pct": -0.312498,
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        "relationship_ids": []
      },
      {
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        "name": "US federal receipts, monthly",
        "slug": "us-federal-receipts-monthly",
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        "change": 26022860285.630005,
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        },
        "direction": "contextual",
        "frequency": "monthly",
        "metric_id": "b533f02a-9992-4f95-909f-d399abf873e1",
        "change_pct": 0.07791,
        "consistent": true,
        "relationship_ids": []
      }
    ],
    "opposite": 2,
    "comparable": 3,
    "consistent": 1
  },
  "history": {
    "count": 8405,
    "last_period": "2026-10-01",
    "change_count": 8404,
    "first_period": "1993-04-01"
  },
  "version": "features_v1",
  "previous": {
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  },
  "surprise": {
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    "scale_method": "mad",
    "median_change": 868471183.050781,
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  "geography": {
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    "code": "USA",
    "name": "United States"
  },
  "centrality": {
    "value": 0,
    "source": "none",
    "entity_ids": [],
    "entity_slugs": []
  },
  "acceleration": {
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    "slope_divergence": 14.8855,
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    "second_difference_z": 1.5001,
    "long_observation_ids": [
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    ],
    "short_observation_ids": [
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  },
  "series_window": [
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    {
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      "id": 410562,
      "value": 40112118151111.92,
      "period": "2026-09-21"
    },
    {
      "id": 410561,
      "value": 40097834028442.07,
      "period": "2026-09-22"
    },
    {
      "id": 410560,
      "value": 40073558531201.68,
      "period": "2026-09-23"
    },
    {
      "id": 410559,
      "value": 40068807991924.84,
      "period": "2026-09-24"
    },
    {
      "id": 411177,
      "value": 40097178119750.91,
      "period": "2026-09-25"
    },
    {
      "id": 411176,
      "value": 40102185696865.37,
      "period": "2026-09-28"
    },
    {
      "id": 411175,
      "value": 40096954633566.68,
      "period": "2026-09-29"
    },
    {
      "id": 411174,
      "value": 40171825101340.31,
      "period": "2026-09-30"
    },
    {
      "id": 411173,
      "value": 40260641972390.03,
      "period": "2026-10-01"
    }
  ],
  "forecast_impact": {
    "value": 0,
    "source": "not_wired"
  },
  "public_attention": {
    "value": 0,
    "source": "not_wired"
  },
  "bottleneck_impact": {
    "value": 0,
    "source": "not_wired"
  }
}

Component labels: Statistical surprise, Acceleration, Breadth, Graph centrality, Forecast impact, Bottleneck impact, Historical rarity, Public attention. Each stored score keeps this packet so it can be recomputed without the database.