The United States Department of Treasury building in Washington, DC, USA, on Tuesday, August 15, 2023.
Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The U.S. budget deficit widened in November, already pushing the 2025 fiscal year ahead much faster than a year ago, when the deficit reached $1.8 trillion, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.
For the month, the deficit totaled $366.8 billion, up 17% from November 2023 and the total for the first two months of the fiscal year up more than 64% from the same period a year ago, on an unadjusted basis .
The increase came despite receipts totaling $301.8 billion, about $27 billion more than last November. Spending totaled $668.5 billion, or nearly $80 billion more than a year ago.
The rise in red ink brought the national debt to $36.1 trillion by the end of the month.
On an adjusted basis, the deficit was $286 billion and year-to-date at $544 billion, an increase of 19%.
Although the Fed has made two rate cuts since September for a total of three-quarters of a percentage point, interest costs remain a major contributor to the budget deficit. Net interest expense totaled $79 billion this month and now stands at $160 billion for the fiscal year, exceeding all other spending except Social Security, Medicare, defense and Medicare.
The Treasury Department expects to pay a total of $1.2 trillion in interest on debt this year.
