During the 2008-09 crisis, authorities guaranteed about two thirds of all debt in the United States.

Judge the share of total US debt (all sectors, or total credit-market debt) that US authorities (the Treasury, the Fed, the FDIC and government-sponsored enterprises under conservatorship) guaranteed or backstopped during the 2008–09 crisis, as estimated by a credible source or computed from Fed Flow of Funds data. True: the share is about 60–73%. Mostly true: 50–60% or 73–80%, or about two thirds only under a broad but defensible definition of 'guaranteed' (such as including backstops and implicit guarantees of the GSEs). Mostly false: 30–50%, or the figure counts total commitments or exposures rather than debt guaranteed and so overstates the guarantee. False: under 30%, or no defensible measure comes near two thirds.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Now How Large Is the Safety Net? Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (Economic Brief EB10-06, Lacker and Weinberg) · June 2010

   “Walter and Malysheva estimate that as of December 2008 the federal financial safety net protected $25 trillion in liabilities, or 58 percent of all financial liabilities, up considerably from 45 percent nine years earlier.”

2. E2 Now How Large Is the Safety Net? Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (Economic Brief EB10-06, Lacker and Weinberg) · June 2010

   “These estimates are conservative, as we have argued, and exclude liabilities — such as money market mutual funds — that one might reasonably presume could receive support again, as they did in 2008.”

3. E3 Bailout Barometer™ Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond · 3 February 2016

   “The latest estimate shows that the financial safety net covers 60 percent of the financial sector. This estimate also includes a breakdown by sector. These measures, compiled in August 2017, use data as of December 31, 2016.”

4. E4 Crisis and Response: An FDIC History, 2008–2013 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation · 18 April 2025

   “It provided a limited-term guarantee for certain newly issued debt not only of banks and thrifts but also of bank, thrift, and financial holding companies and eligible bank affiliates”

The evidence estimates that the federal safety net protected 58 percent of all financial liabilities at December 2008 [E1], and 60 percent of the financial sector in a later year [E3]. No evidence item gives the share of total US debt (all sectors or total credit-market debt) that was guaranteed, which is what the criteria require. Nothing in the material shows that the estimate used a broad definition of 'guaranteed'.