What the US Losing Its Last AAA Credit Rating Means

The US government lost its last triple-A credit score from a major international ratings firm after a downgrade by Moody’s Investors Service on May 16, in a bleak milestone for the world’s largest economy.

Explaining the move, Moody’s analysts cited more than a decade of inaction by successive US administrations and Congress to arrest a trend of large fiscal deficits. The government’s debt-interest costs ballooned when inflation spiked in the aftermath of Covid-19, and are forecast to reach $1 trillion this year, up from $263 billion in 2017, according to Congress’s Government Accountability Office.