US Budget Deificit Hits $984 Billion In Fiscal 2019, Up $205 Billion In One Year

With the cumulative budget deficit for the first 11 months of fiscal 2019 already hitting $1.067 trillion as of August 31, the only question on deficit watchers’ minds was whether after the final month in the fiscal year, which ends on Sept 30, the US deficit would be greater or less than $1 trillion.

At 2pm today we got the answer, when the US Treasury reported that thanks to a $82.8 billion surplus in September, the full year deficit for fiscal 2019 was shy of $1 trillion, but just barely, printing at $984.4 billion, a whopping $205 billion, or 26.4% increase, to the $779 billion deficit hit in 2018.

This was $24 billion more than the CBO’s own forecast in August, which predicted a 2019 deficit of $960BN.

As shown below, the $83 billion monthly surplus was thanks to $374 billion in receipts, offsetting $291 billion in outlays. The biggest source of income were income taxes ($183BN), social security and retirement ($104BN), and corporate income taxes ($60BN), while the biggest outlays were Social Security ($88BN), Defense spending ($55BN), healthcare ($53BN), and Medicare ($26BN).

That said, the fact that the US failed to hit a $1 trillion deficit in 2019 merely means that the D-Day has been postponed for one year, as most analyst forecasts and government budgets anticipate will happen in 2020.