EconoFact

According to the Brazilian Central Bank, interest payments on Brazil’s debt reached 8.05% of its GDP in 2025, up from 7.69% in 2024. This is larger than the primary deficit, the gap between revenue raised and non-interest expenses, of 0.42% of GDP. The sum of these two represents the total deficit, the amount the Brazilian federal government had to borrow in 2025. These large interest payments reflect both high net debt (65% of GDP) and high interest rates on Brazilian government bonds.

In his new book, The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order Is Spiraling into Disorder, Eswar Prasad writes that “economic, political, and geopolitical factors are fuelling a doom loop, breeding turmoil rather than stability, disarray rather than order.” Prasad joins EconoFact Chats to discuss why forces once expected to foster shared prosperity — globalization, multilateral institutions and competition — are instead driving instability, and why the erosion of domestic institutions makes...

The US’s federal debt held by the public, the amount owned to bondholders, was $31 trillion in Q4 2025, but this does not account for implicit obligations for future welfare payment responsibilities. For example, additional revenue will be needed to preserve the benefits of the Social Security Administration’s trust fund. It is expected to run out in the 2030s, dampening benefits, unless changes are made to its revenues or payments.

These housing market effects are consistent with earlier evidence showing that abortion bans triggered population outflows from ban states and, taken together, suggest that reproductive rights policies can have an effect on the economic value of location. When states restrict abortion access, they effectively reduce the attractiveness of living there for many households — and this change in perceived amenity value shows up in measurable declines in rents and increases in vacancies.

Though it is difficult to quantify the exact degree to which AI-related stocks have contributed to stock gains, analyses have found it is a key driver. A September 2025 J.P. Morgan report noted that since the launch of ChatGPT (November 2022), AI-related stocks had been responsible for 75% of S&P 500 returns and 80% of earnings growth. Furthermore, according to RBC Wealth Management, seven AI-oriented stocks represented over half of the S&P 500’s total gains during 2025.

The COVID pandemic and the war with Iran highlight the vulnerabilities associated with international supply chains. But sourcing from low-cost producers and from countries that have an advantage in providing key inputs also contributes to greater productivity and a wider range of available goods.

Child poverty imposes high costs on the children that experience material needs as well as on society. A growing body of evidence shows a causal link between the lack of resources and adverse outcomes for children, who tend to have lower rates of completed education, lower earnings in adulthood, and higher rates of mortality. Federal tax credits can play an important role in lifting people above poverty.

The average American works 241 days yearly. Clark (2018) proposes that days employed in medieval England cannot have been much lower than the 250-day range for most centuries. Allen and Weisdorf (2010), meanwhile, find that male farmers would need to work at least 150 days per year during the late Middle Ages to afford subsistence for their families, given wages, and 300 days before the Black Death. A peasant’s workday lasted from sunup to sundown with breaks.

· Independent Economic Consultant Click here for data on all OECD countries. U.S. taxes, including those levied by state and local governments, are low compared with most other industrial countries. Moreover, U.S. tax revenues fall well short of public spending (which is also modest by international standards), resulting in large fiscal deficits and growing government debt as a share of GDP that is on track to surpass the record levels reached in the aftermath of World War II.

This week, EconoFact Chats features an abridged version of an Ask Me Anything Webinar held on January 16th, 2026 featuring Heather Long of the Navy Federal Credit Union (formerly at The Washington Post), and John Hilsenrath of Serpa Pinto Advisory (formerly at The Wall Street Journal).