Economists, financial analysts, members of Congress, and countless citizens were rattled when the national debt hit $40 trillion on August 19, prompting Bank of America Chief Equity Strategist Michael Hartnett to predict the $50 trillion mark will be surpassed in less than three years.

Hartnett’s prediction was repeated by Independent Institute (II) Research Fellow Craig Eyermann and MarketWatch’s Jules Rimmer. Hartnett’s analysis first appeared in Bank of America’s August 13 client research note, “The Flow Show: Strife Begins at Forty,” which is an influential subscription-only financial industry outlet.

“It took 8 years, 11 months and 9 days for the federal government to go from being $10 trillion in debt to $20 trillion. Then it took another 4 years, 4 months and 27 days to reach $30 trillion. With the $40 trillion mark now officially breached in August 2026, it took about 4 years and 7 months to add the most recent $10 trillion of net borrowing. If Hartnett is right, it will take less than three years of the U.S. government’s continued excessive spending to add the next $10 trillion to the national debt total,” Eyermann reported in an II analysis.

“Soberingly, Bank of America’s chief equity strategist, Michael Hartnett, predicts that the next milestone, $50 trillion, will be reached in July 2029. These worrying landmarks reinforce a market perception that fixed-income investments are losing bets, a sentiment Hartnett summarizes as ‘Anything But Bonds,’” is how Rimmer put it.

Whether Hartnett’s prediction will be confirmed come July 2029 remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that the national debt’s mounting total is accelerating at an unprecedented pace.

“In the 2020s, the U.S. added debt at a rate of $1 trillion every 5 months, more than twice the rate that has prevailed over the past 25 years. Yet, in the face of a growing economy, U.S. deficits remain substantially elevated and are projected to continue growing at a historic rate,” the Peter G. Peterson Foundation explains.

In other words, the federal government added $1 trillion to the national debt every 24 months on average during the first decade of the 21st century. In the next decade, that pace accelerated to an added $1 trillion every 11 months, then in the present decade every five months on average.

The explanation for the rapid acceleration is the national debt comes down to two factors: First, presidents and congressional majorities of both major political parties have increased federal spending exponentially since day one of the 21st century, but especially so since the COVID-19 pandemic that killed more than one million Americans beginning in January 2020. Second, revenues have increased following major tax cuts in 2017 and again in 2025, but spending has still outpaced the added income to the government. The current fiscal year deficit is $1.7 trillion.

Multiple factors could slow or hasten the currently accelerating pace, so Hartnett’s prediction is reasonable, given present and recent circumstance, but multiple factors in the economy and the national political scene could also slow the pace, thus delaying the arrival of the $50 trillion mark.

What is beyond question is that the national debt represents an immense, accelerating economic timebomb that at the current level would require more than $117,000 from every man, woman, and child living in America today if it had to be repaid now.

When asked by The Washington Stand whether he sees sufficient political will to reduce federal spending enough to bring down the national debt, Eyermann was skeptical.

“It’s a safe bet today’s political establishment at all levels of government in the U.S. will do whatever they think will put and keep them in power. For too many, the ease of being able to borrow to spend above and beyond what they collect in taxes from Americans gives them some very perverse incentives. They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep the system that rewards them so generously going as long as they can. Reducing or eliminating the national debt will never be a priority for those who lack the incentives to live within their means,” Eyermann contended.

As bad as a $40 trillion national debt is, the magnitude of America’s negative balance sheet is clearly overwhelming to many. But the true magnitude of the national debt may be immensely bigger, according to Truth-in-Accounting (TIA), a Chicago-based accountancy nonprofit.

In its most recent calculation of the actual national debt — that is, including the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare, federal employee pensions, and other benefit programs — the total is actually $170 trillion.

“Truth in Accounting’s analysis of the most recent audited Financial Report of the U.S. Government found its overall financial condition worsened by $11.6 trillion in 2025. The mounting debt burden of $170.3 trillion represents the total benefits promised to citizens, yet the federal government has no clear idea where the money will come from to pay for them,” TIA said.

The analysis continued, “Social Security and Medicare, the government has made explicit commitments to provide these benefits, and the programs’ trustees provide estimated amounts of these obligations. Therefore, in addition to federal assets and liabilities reported by the Treasury, Truth in Accounting includes liabilities for promised but not funded benefits totaling $54 trillion for Social Security and $74.5 trillion for Medicare when assessing the government’s financial condition.”

Asked about Hartnett’s $50 trillion prediction, TIA Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sheila Weinberg told TWS that, based on current data, including the projected unfunded liabilities would put the total national debt in July 2029 at approximately $211.5 trillion.

Eyermann dissents from the TIA calculation, claiming the unfunded liability is not a present debt, saying “the national debt calculation should not account for unfunded liabilities for programs like Social Security, Medicare, retirement pensions, and so on.”

“As it’s best understood, the national debt represents the total public debt outstanding for the U.S. government,” he explained. “Every dollar of that debt can be traced to a bill, bond, or other debt instrument that has already been issued by the U.S. government to the people or institutions who loaned it money. By contrast, unfunded liabilities represent future debt, which hasn’t yet been borrowed and isn’t represented by actual debt issued by the federal government. These liabilities are defined by current law and are subject to change in the future.”