National Debt Isn’t $23 Trillion, It’s $122 Trillion, Group Says

A man walks past the he National Debt Clock on 43rd Street in midtown New York City Feb. 15, 2019. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—America’s current national debt stands at roughly $23.3 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Debt to the Penny” website, which is so precise that visitors can pick a specific date in the recent past—say Jan. 1, 2000—and get the exact amount on that day: $5,776,091,314,225.33.

While based on those figures, the national debt has more than quadrupled in that time frame, it’s actually much worse than that, according to calculations by Bill Bergman.