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.

The original motivation of the Jones Act was based on national security concerns, and these reasons continue to be advanced today. But cargo shipping by air is possible today, which was not the case in 1920. Also, only one of the five shipyards that produce major vessels for the Navy and Coast Guard builds commercial vessels that are Jones Act compliant.

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 price of oil has risen by over 40% since the start of the war with Iran, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — which sees roughly 20 million barrels of oil transit daily — has come to a virtual halt. Past oil price spikes have driven inflation higher, and weakened economies worldwide. What do the current disruptions portend for oil markets, and global economic growth? How might these disruptions reshape energy production in the short run and the long run?

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.