# Doom Thesis — machine-readable edition

Generated: 2026-08-05T01:06:10.942083+00:00
Data as of: 2026-08-02
Canonical human page: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/
Canonical machine-readable document: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis.txt
Full structured data: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/data.json

## Executive thesis

This is what it would take to right-size the fiscal and monetary situation in the United States. Bring the annual deficit down to 3% of GDP and reduce the Social Security and Medicare funding gap to one year of GDP without cutting promised benefits. On current math, that requires a recurring $2.66 trillion annual adjustment, or economic growth fast enough to make the bill small relative to the economy. A tax-led adjustment is likely to produce a lower-growth, lower-valuation transition rather than a painless accounting fix. This is why AGI moon math is appealing: extraordinary productivity is the only believable non-austerity route that could honor the promises without some combination of very large taxes, benefit cuts, inflation, or financial repression. It would have to be a sustained change in the growth regime, not a one-year AI boom.

## Doom Index research status

- Current research evidence score: 67.8/100 at 100.0% weighted input coverage.
- Missing-input sensitivity: 67.8–67.8.
- This is a fixed-threshold evidence score, not a calibrated regime probability or an investable signal.
- Publication gate: 100% of weighted inputs must be current or explicitly modeled and reproducible; modeled inputs retain visible sensitivity, and historical calibration remains a separate strategy gate.
- Portfolio rule: exit Doom-linked positions below 20.
- Productivity override: the current research estimate is 2.5% that U.S. productivity averages at least 5% for five years, versus a 50% trigger. The estimate is reproducible but not calibrated for live execution.
- Framework JSON: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/doom-index-framework.json

## The numbers

- Gross public debt: $39.84 trillion.
- Social Security 75-year open-group present-value shortfall: $29.3 trillion.
- Medicare 75-year government-wide resource gap: $65.3 trillion.
- Combined measured liabilities: $134.44 trillion, or $997,412 per household.
- Median household income: $83,730 before tax and $72,330 after tax (2024).
- Current federal interest: $1.04 trillion, equal to 39.5% of rolling public-company net income.
- Annualized payment for the full Social Security and Medicare gaps: $2.66 trillion. With current interest, the all-in annual economic burden is $3.70 trillion, or 140.3% of public-company net income.

## Current fiscal flow

- FY2026 projected receipts: $5.60 trillion (17.5% of GDP).
- FY2026 projected outlays: $7.45 trillion.
- FY2026 projected deficit: $1.85 trillion.
- Receipts cover 75.1% of outlays; interest consumes 18.6% of receipts.

## Prudent reduction sensitivity

Definition: Reduce the FY2026 unified deficit to 3 percent of GDP and reduce the combined Social Security and Medicare 75-year present-value funding gap to no more than one year of current GDP.
- Annual deficit correction: $0.90 trillion.
- Annual equivalent funding needed to reduce the program gap: $1.76 trillion.
- Total recurring adjustment: $2.66 trillion, or 8.3% of GDP.
- Tax-only federal receipts would rise from 17.5% to 25.9% of GDP.
- Illustrative tax-only endpoint: top ordinary rate 45.4%; combined standard payroll rate 21.2%; top long-term gains including NIIT 35.7%; corporate rate 32.9%; broad VAT 14.8%.
- Warning: Social Security and Medicare funding gaps overlap with future unified-budget deficits. This construction combines a current-year deficit target with prospective prefunding; it must not be added again to a full 75-year unified-deficit present value. The reform shares are present-value financing sensitivities, not specified benefit cuts or independently scored policy packages.

## Economy and stock-market sensitivity

- CBO tax-financing experiments of comparable scale put the GDP level 3%–10% below baseline after ten years. This is a comparison, not a forecast of this exact package.
- The modeled corporate-rate change mechanically reduces after-tax earnings by about 15%.
- Combining that earnings effect with a 10%–20% P/E de-rating implies a mechanical equity-value loss of 24%–32%. A recessionary implementation could be worse.

## Consensus growth and the AGI escape hurdle

- IMF U.S. real GDP growth: 2.3% in 2026 and 2.2% in 2027.
- CBO longer-run U.S. real GDP growth: about 1.8%.
- IMF global growth: 3.0% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027; World Bank: 2.5% and 2.8%.
- Growth needed to dilute the current program gap from roughly 297% to 100% of GDP, assuming the real gap itself grows between 0% and 2% annually:
- 10 years: real GDP 11.5%–13.7%; productivity 11.0%–13.3% annually.
- 20 years: real GDP 5.6%–7.7%; productivity 5.2%–7.3% annually.
- 30 years: real GDP 3.7%–5.8%; productivity 3.3%–5.3% annually.
- Method: GDP hurdle makes the current real program gap equal one year of future real GDP without benefit reductions. It is a denominator test, not cash funding, and assumes a stable federal revenue share.

## Debt, corporate income, productivity, demographics, and valuation

- Since the end of 1999, public debt accrued by $34.07 trillion versus $27.32 trillion of cumulative public-company net income, a 1.25x ratio.
- Rolling operating-company FCF yield: 2.68% versus a 5.27% 30-year Treasury yield.
- SPX forward earnings yield: 4.73% versus VCLT yield of 6.19%.
- U.S. electricity generation: 4,430 TWh; utility capex: $201.3 billion; real capex per MWh is 2.38x its 2004 level.
- Public-school current spending per pupil: $17,619 in FY2024. Inflation-adjusted spending rose 28.9% from 2003 while the national-public grade-8 NAEP reading/math composite ended 1.6% below its 2003 level.
- Wider human-capital signals: grade-12 reading was 10 NAEP points below 1992; adults at PIAAC literacy Level 1 or below rose from 19% in 2017 to 28% in 2023; chronic absence was 23% in 2024–25 versus 15% before the pandemic.
- Credential versus mastery: the public-school graduation rate rose from 80% in 2011–12 to 87% in 2021–22 and average reported GPA rose from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021, while the ACT composite fell from 21.0 in 2015 to 19.4 in 2025. ACT estimates that changing participation explains much of the aggregate score decline, but the broader school-day cohort also fell from 18.4 to 17.8.
- School-to-work conversion: SignalFire reported that new graduates were only 7% of Big Tech hires in 2024. Its 2026 report estimates new-grad/entry-level hiring 65% below 2019 at Tech Majors and 76% below 2019 at early-stage startups; top-20 computer-science graduates were 45% less likely to take a Tech Major role in 2025 than the 2022 class. These proprietary LinkedIn-derived estimates measure employer demand and career transitions, not educational quality alone.
- Institutional-capacity context: 17% trusted the federal government in 2025. CMS measured $56.73 billion of FY2025 Medicare FFS, Part C, and Part D improper payments; CMS explicitly states this is not a fraud estimate.
- Current aggregate operating-company FCF margin: 8.7%, reconstructed from four rolling reported quarters through 2026-08-02.
- Outside the score-70+ distraction basket, U.S. nonfinancial, nonutility public companies have rolling-four-quarter real revenue growth of 2.0% (6.4% nominal), FCF margin of 7.9%, and operating-cash-flow margin of 14.3% as of 2026-08-04. Real growth uses the latest publicly available current-vintage GDP deflator. This is an observable broad-business outcome bridge, not a causal estimate of AI productivity: mix, acquisitions, entry, and cyclicality also affect it.
- Latest nonfarm-business productivity: 0.3% quarter-over-quarter annualized and 2.8% year-over-year in Q1 2026.
- Common Prosperity housing burden: principal and interest on an 80% 30-year fixed mortgage against the median new-house price equals 27.9% of nowcast median household income, -8% since 2006 and +5% since 1976. The new-house price itself is 4.52x income versus 3.49x in 1976.
- A median full-time work hour buys 5.01 Big Macs, -17% since 2006. A documented 75-cent Columbus, Nebraska menu and the May 1976 CPS median usual hourly wage imply a disclosed 1976 proxy of 5.68, or -12% to today; the national comparable Big Mac price series begins in 2000.
- NVDA market capitalization is 135% of the summed market capitalization of matched current IWM constituents; Sharadar covers 98.6% of IWM equity weight.
- Social outcomes: life expectancy changed +1.2 years since 2006 and +6.0 years since 1976; native-born women ages 40–50 report 1.916 completed births; the 2024 suicide rate was 13.7 per 100,000 (+24.5% since 2006); measured obesity among adults ages 20–74 was 40.8% (+25.8 percentage points since the 1976–1980 survey).
- Demographic support ratio: OASDI beneficiaries rose from 19.7 per 100 covered workers in 1960 to 37.8 in 2025; the Trustees' intermediate projection reaches 43.0 in 2036.
- Debt comparison: gross federal debt was 114.1% of GDP in 1945, fell to 53.6% in 1960, and stood at 121.5% in 2025. This is the gross-debt definition used in the total measured obligations. The 1945 Social Security ratio is a startup artifact because ongoing monthly benefits began only in 1940.

## Definitions

- measured_liability_stack: Gross federal debt plus the OASDI 75-year open-group present-value shortfall plus Medicare's 75-year government-wide resource gap.
- doom_index: Legacy data-key definition for total measured obligations; this is not the new 0–100 Doom Index evidence score.
- household_income: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey mean after-tax income per consumer unit. The latest published mean is 2023; BLS could not publish a 2024 mean because its external tax model was not updated.
- ratio: Liability stock per Census household divided by one year of BLS mean after-tax income per consumer unit; read as approximate income-years.
- discretionary_income: St. Louis Fed/BLS definition: after-tax income less food at home, housing, transportation, health care, and personal insurance and pensions. The latest published benchmark is 2023 and is rounded.
- annualized_unfunded_burden: Derived level real annual payment that amortizes the Social Security and Medicare 75-year present-value gaps over 75 years at the Trustees' 2.3% intermediate ultimate real interest rate. It is an economic funding benchmark, not a current legal invoice.
- education_productivity: Census public-school current spending per pupil, deflated by CPI-U and compared with the equally weighted index of national-public grade-8 NAEP reading and mathematics scores. Chart values are normalized to 2003=100 for visual comparison; NAEP scores are not ratio-scale measures of knowledge, and the relationship is descriptive rather than a causal estimate of spending efficacy.
- demographic_support_ratio: OASDI beneficiaries in current-payment status on June 30 per 100 people who had OASDI-covered earnings at some point during the calendar year. OASDI includes old-age, survivor, and disability beneficiaries; it is broader than pensioners.

## Data downloads

- Full JSON: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/data.json
- Household liabilities: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/household-liabilities.csv
- Daily cumulative income versus debt: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/cumulative-income-vs-debt-daily.csv
- Fiscal sustainability scenarios: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/fiscal-sustainability-scenarios.csv
- AGI growth sensitivity: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/agi-growth-escape-sensitivity.csv
- Education spending versus NAEP: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/education-spending-vs-naep.csv
- Daily real-business productivity ex distraction: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/real-business-productivity-ex-distraction-daily.csv
- Common Prosperity affordability snapshot: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/common-prosperity-affordability.csv
- Common Prosperity housing history: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/common-prosperity-housing.csv
- OASDI support ratio and deficit comparison: https://goodalexander.com/doom-thesis/demographics-support-ratio.csv

## Sources

- Bloomberg public debt: PUBLDEBT Index / PX_LAST
- Social Security Trustees: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2026/IV_B_LRest.html
- Social Security covered workers and beneficiaries: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2026/lr4b4.html
- OMB/FRED federal surplus or deficit as a share of GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSDFYGDP
- OMB/FRED gross federal debt as a share of GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDGDPA188S
- CBO 2026–2036 budget outlook: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105
- Social Security program history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/1940.html
- Medicare Trustees: https://www.cms.gov/oact/tr/2026
- Census total households: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TTLHH
- BLS mean after-tax income per consumer unit: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUINCAFTTXLB0101M
- Census 2024 median household income before and after tax: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2025/demo/p60-286.html
- St. Louis Fed discretionary-income benchmark: https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/aug/primer-discretionary-income
- Treasury MSPD: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/monthly-statement-public-debt/
- CBO Budget and Economic Outlook: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61882
- Sharadar fundamentals: Local SF1 ARQ point-in-time four-quarter reconstruction
- EIA total U.S. electricity generation: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/
- BLS nonfarm-business labor productivity: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB
- Census public-school current spending per pupil: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/school-finances/data/tables.html
- NAEP national public grade-8 reading and mathematics: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/api_documentation.aspx
- NAEP 2024 grade-12 reading and mathematics: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/reports/reading/2024/g12/national-trends/
- NCES PIAAC 2023 national adult skills: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp
- NCES public high-school graduation rates: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/coi/high-school-graduation
- ACT 2025 graduating-class results: https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/2025-ACT-Graduating-Class-Infographic.pdf
- ACT graduating-class participation analysis: https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/interpreting-graduating-class-data-2024.pdf
- ACT high-school grade-inflation study: https://industryinsights.act.org/2022/05/grade-inflation-past-decade
- SignalFire State of Tech Talent 2025: https://www.signalfire.com/blog/signalfire-state-of-talent-report-2025
- SignalFire State of Tech Talent 2026: https://www.signalfire.com/blog/signalfire-state-of-talent-report-2026
- Education Recovery Scorecard 2026: https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/news/26/05/new-education-scorecard-finds-u-shaped-recovery
- Pew public trust in government, 1958–2025: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/12/04/public-trust-in-government-1958-2025/
- CMS FY2025 improper payments fact sheet: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/fiscal-year-2025-improper-payments-fact-sheet
- Sharadar utility capex and operating-company FCF: Local SF1 ARY, latest restatement per ticker and calendar period; U.S. domestic common stocks including delisted names
- Sharadar real-business productivity bridge: Local SF1 ARQ replayed point in time by datekey; U.S. domestic common stocks excluding GLM 5.2 distraction scores >=70, with Financial Services and Utilities excluded from the primary FCF cut
- Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US
- Census/HUD median new-house sale price: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
- Census median personal and household income: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html
- BLS median usual weekly nominal earnings: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881500Q
- The Economist Big Mac data: https://github.com/TheEconomist/big-mac-data
- Documented 1976 Columbus, Nebraska McDonald's menu: https://mchallmanagement.com/History/40th_Anniversary_Article.pdf
- BLS CPS May 1976 usual hourly earnings: https://www.asasrms.org/Proceedings/y1976/Earnings%20Data%20From%20The%20CPS%20-%20New%20Collection%20Efforts%20And%20Some%20Findings.pdf
- iShares IWM current holdings: https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239710/ishares-russell-2000-etf
- Census CPS completed fertility by nativity: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2024/demo/fertility/women-fertility.html
- CDC suicide trends, 2001–2024: https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/data/index.html
- CDC measured adult obesity history: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/hestat111.htm
- CDC 2024 life expectancy: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db548.htm
- Harvard 2026–27 undergraduate tuition: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works
- Penn 2026–27 undergraduate tuition: https://srfs.upenn.edu/costs-budgeting/undergraduate-tuition-and-fees
- Harvard historical tuition and 2006 Fact Book: https://oira.harvard.edu/files/2023/02/harvard_fact_book_2006-2007.pdf
- 1976 Harvard tuition contemporaneous record: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1976-pt14/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1976-pt14-6-3.pdf
- Penn historical tuition: https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-history/tuition/tuition-1970-1979/
- Census 1976 median household income: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1978/demo/p60-109.html
- USGS historical gold prices: https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2012/5188/sir2012-5188.pdf
- EIA historical crude-oil first-purchase prices: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?f=a&n=pet&s=f000000__3
- IRS historical federal corporation tax rates: https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-historical-table-24
- CBO Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105
- IMF World Economic Outlook Update, July 2026: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo/issues/2026/07/08/world-economic-outlook-update-july-2026
- World Bank Global Economic Prospects, June 2026: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2026/06/11/global-economic-prospects-june-2026-press-release
- CBO economic effects of financing a permanent spending increase: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57021
- OMB total federal receipts and outlays: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFR
- Bloomberg equity and fixed-income valuation: SPX Index BEST_PE_RATIO; VCLT US Equity YAS_BOND_YLD; USGG30YR Index PX_LAST