Did the US lose its AAA credit rating?
That's part of the reason that
Home / Economy / Articles / What is the US credit rating, and what does its downgrade mean? On August 1, 2023, Fitch Ratings, one of the country's three major credit rating agencies, announced that it had downgraded the US credit rating from AAA to AA+.
As Moody's lowers the US credit outlook, what could this mean for consumers in the future? Moody's, a leading risk assessment agency, has lowered the United States government's credit ratings outlook from "stable" to "negative," citing political polarization in Congress.
Regarding the downgrading of the US' long-term credit rating, Fitch explained that the “repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management” and that “the government lacks a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and has a complex budgeting process.”
'AAA' ratings denote the lowest expectation of default risk. They are assigned only in cases of exceptionally strong capacity for payment of financial commitments. This capacity is highly unlikely to be adversely affected by foreseeable events.
As of Aug. 1, the U.S. Treasury owed $32.6 trillion, both to bondholders and other parts of the federal government. That's part of the reason that Fitch cut the U.S. government's long-term creditworthiness by one notch, from AAA – its highest rating – to AA+.
The downgrade reflected growing U.S. government deficits and a lack of political will to rein them in, a problem that was already well known. Two of the three credit rating companies have already downgraded U.S. debt from its gold-plated AAA status.
Agency | Rating | Outlook |
---|---|---|
S&P | AA- | Negative |
Moody's | Aa3 | Negative |
DBRS | A (high) | Stable |
Moody's | Aa3 | Stable |
Rating Agency | Rating | Action |
---|---|---|
Standard & Poor's | AAA | outlook upgrade |
Moody's Investors Service | Aaa | outlook upgrade |
Fitch Ratings | AAA | |
DBRS | AAA |
Some of the top examples include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, and Hong Kong. These are all countries that generally carry a credit rating of AAA.
What happens if US credit rating is downgraded?
Although a ding in the U.S. credit rating means that Fitch thinks it's likelier than before that the U.S. will default, that continues to be an extremely unlikely scenario, experts say. Even after the downgrade, U.S. Treasurys are likely to maintain their status among the safest investments in the world, says Detrick.
Canada is one of the few countries in the world with a AAA credit rating from at least two of the top global rating agencies.
The credit downgrade is one in a sequence of developments that could eventually lead investors to believe the U.S. is less likely to pay off its debt. In that case, investors would demand a higher interest rate for loans and, in turn, U.S. debt would become more costly.
Currently there are only two companies in the United States with an AAA credit rating: Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson.
For Standard & Poor's, AAA is the best rating, followed by AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, CC, and C.
S&P ratings are issued to long-term issuers of credit and insurance companies on a letter-based scale. The first rating is AAA, while the second highest is AA. Anything that falls in the A class is considered high quality, and the debt issuer has a strong likelihood of meeting its financial obligations.
1 Foreign governments hold a large portion of the public debt, while the rest is owned by U.S. banks and investors, the Federal Reserve, state and local governments, mutual funds, pensions funds, insurance companies, and holders of savings bonds.
Agency | Rating | Date |
---|---|---|
S&P | AA | Apr 21 2023 |
DBRS | AA | Jan 13 2023 |
Moody's | Aa3 | Oct 21 2022 |
DBRS | AA (high) | Oct 19 2022 |
The $34 trillion gross federal debt equals debt held by the public plus debt held by federal trust funds and other government accounts. In very basic terms, this can be thought of as debt that the government owes to others plus debt that it owes to itself.
Moody's was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962. In 2000, Dun & Bradstreet spun off Moody's Corporation as a separate company that was listed on the NYSE under MCO.
Why has credit rating gone down?
Key points on why your credit score could go down
Things like new credit applications and missed payments may impact your credit score. You may be able to improve your credit score in a number of ways, including making sure you're on the electoral register, managing accounts well and limiting new credit applications.
Agency | Rating | Outlook |
---|---|---|
DBRS | BBB | Stable |
Moody's | Baa3 | Positive |
DBRS | BBB (low) | Positive |
S&P | BBB- | Stable |
Agency | Rating | Outlook |
---|---|---|
S&P | AA | Stable |
DBRS | AAA | Stable |
Moody's | Aa2 | Stable |
DBRS | AAA | Negative |
The premise behind a nationwide social rating system itself is relatively simple: every citizen receives a certain score to start, and certain actions either lower or increase your score. For example, donating to charity would increase your score, while buying cigarettes would lower it.
The Social Credit System (Chinese: 社会信用体系; pinyin: shèhuì xìnyòng tǐxì) is a national credit rating and blacklist being developed by the government of China.