This fictitious drop in debt to GDP will highlight that the U.S. improved its debt load, while it did not. Another example is government spending as a percentage of GDP.

Understand how gross domestic product (GDP) is calculated and whether or not transfer payments, such as Social Security, are included in GDP.

Although there are several ways of calculating GDP, the expenditures approach is the most common. It focuses on final goods and services purchased by four groups: consumers, businesses ...