The national debt — under every U.S. president

As of April 2023, the U.S. national debt has reached a record high of more than $31.5 trillion.

Clearly, the government's increasing debt is not a new trend. To see how it got to this point, GOBankingRates analyzed Treasury Department data on public debt from George Washington's presidency through Biden's current term.

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Washington took office in April 1789. However, the Treasury Department's data starts in 1790, when Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton estimated that total public debt was $70.1 million and called for the issuance of federal bonds to cover the debt. In 1835, the national debt hit a low of $33,733 when Andrew Jackson was president. But the U.S. started borrowing again as the economy entered a recession in 1837. The country's debt eventually crossed the billion-dollar mark in 1863 during the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's presidency.

Over a century later, the public debt topped $1 trillion for the first time in 1982 under Ronald Reagan and more than doubled during his presidency — and it's been climbing steadily since then. Knowing how much the national debt has increased with each president might help inform your decisions in the 2024 presidential race.