No, Debt Is Not at Scary Levels Right Now

The Wall Street Journal regurgitates concerns about growing debt today, promising 14 charts that tell the story. It’s a weird collection of charts, though, one that seems almost determined not to show debt levels in their simplest form. So here they are. First, corporate debt:

This does not look especially scary. Now here’s household debt:

Again, not very scary. In the case of both corporate and household debt, it doesn’t do to just show raw levels or BBB bond issuance or median income. The simplest view is to look at total debt as a percentage of something that accounts for the fact that everything is growing, not just debt. In the case of corporations, debt-to-equity levels are the usual way of gauging things. In the case of households, debt as a percentage of income is the most revealing. Both are at historically low levels.

In the case of corporate debt, you could also look at debt as a percentage of GDP, and that does indeed show steady growth over the past few years—although it’s basically just following the trendline of the past few decades. Still, that might be a modest warning sign.

Overall, though, it’s hard to see debt as a huge problem at the moment. The one exception might be state-level government debt, although that’s declined over the past few years from a post-recession high of 27 percent of GDP back down to a more manageable 17 percent of GDP. That headroom will come in handy, since tax revenues have cratered during the COVID-19 pandemic and Republicans in Congress seemingly have no desire to help out.

Bottom line: There are lots of things to worry about these days, but overall debt levels probably don’t make the top ten. What does make the top ten, as usual, is assistance aimed specifically at people whose incomes have been hit the hardest by COVID-19. We should worry a lot more about that and a lot less about economy-wide debt levels.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate