A few thoughts, though I'm not an economist: * 14 million is a big number, but it's less than 5% of the U.S. population. I do agree that it's a serious concern

A few thoughts, though I'm not an economist: * 14 million is a big number, but it's less than 5% of the U.S. population. I do agree that it's a serious concern, but because of the welfare and economic opportunity for those people, and because of the social disruption of economic inequality; the economy in aggregate is doing well. For those interested, you can find the numbers here (you can adjust the years at the top): https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 * Debt is a bad word colloquially, but in finance / business / economics, it's actually a great efficiency: Instead of useful resources (e.g., money) sitting around unused (e.g., in a vault), they are lent out to others to make productive use of. Financial institutions are like Airbnb for money - others get to rent your asset while you don't need it, and you make something from it. Borrowing is fine as long as you are generating more income from the borrowed funds than it costs you - e.g., as long as the software you build with the borrowed funds earns a better return than the interest you owe. Generally, that works out well or people wouldn't have a reason to lend or borrow. * As of December 2015, of the total U.S. federal government debt, 40% was held by foreigners. Interest paid was $94.9 billion that year. The U.S. economy was ~18 trillion that year, so the debt service was ~1/180th of U.S. income; not a problem. Source: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22331.pdf