What a difference just five years will make.

The U.S. national debt reached $19 trillion. How can we grasp such an unfathomable number?

Here at Learn Liberty, we’ve been trying to answer that question for years. In fact, our very first video attempted to contextualize the size of the then $14 trillion debt. With help of Duquesne University Professor Antony Davies, we illustrated how that debt was bigger than the entire global economy. That video went viral and has been viewed 646,000 times. Through it, Learn Liberty was born.

As part of our five year anniversary celebration, we have updated and modernized that video with new figures, graphics, and animation. Professor Davies explains that if we stacked up $100 bills, the $19 trillion U.S. debt would exceed the entire output of the U.S. economy. The size of the debt including unfunded obligations – future Social Security and Medicaid payments that the government doesn’t have the money to pay – would exceed the entire economic output of the entire planet.

Check out the re-mastered video and the original below. Any estimates on what the debt will be in five more years?