Social

Higher inflation is leading to higher interest rates and this means an added burden on the national debt. The US spent $392 billion on the debt last year and the average interest rate was 3%. This year the interest rate will be much higher. One of the reasons that social security takes such a large cut from the budget was because of the high interest rates during the late 70's and early 80's. The same thing is happening now. Social security just announce that next year all recipients will receive an increase of 8.7%. SS pays out $1.145 trillion so this increase will cost an additional $100 billion.