The US economy has gotten past the worst of the leveraging (debt build-up).

Judge as of 2017-09-12. The claim is that the US economy was past the worst phase of debt build-up and deleveraging. True: data show that private-sector leverage (household debt-to-GDP and/or household and corporate debt service ratios) peaked around 2007-09, was well below its peak by 2017, and that the acute deleveraging pressures had eased. Mostly true: household and financial-sector leverage were well past their peak, but some aggregate (e.g., corporate debt) was rising again. Mixed: private leverage was down, but total economy-wide debt-to-GDP (including the government) was at or near record highs, so the picture is split. Mostly false: only a narrow measure supports the claim, while most leverage indicators were at or near their peaks. False: the key leverage measures were at or above their crisis peaks in 2017.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 An Assessment of Financial Stability in the United States Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (remarks by Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer) · 27 June 2017

   “Leverage in the financial sector is at historically low levels”

2. E2 An Assessment of Financial Stability in the United States Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (remarks by Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer) · 27 June 2017

   “the corporate business sector appears to be notably leveraged, with the current aggregate corporate-sector leverage standing near 20-year highs.”

3. E3 2017 Financial Stability Report Office of Financial Research (U.S. Treasury) · 2017

   “Business debt levels are at all-time highs.”

4. E4 FRB: FEDS Notes: Deleveraging and Recent Trends in Household Debt Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FEDS Notes, Ivan Vidangos) · 6 April 2015

   “The debt-to-DPI ratio fell from a peak of 1.24 at the end of 2007 to around 1.00 by the end of 2012”

E4 shows that household debt-to-disposable-income peaked at the end of 2007 and fell to about 1.00 by the end of 2012. E1, from June 2017, says financial-sector leverage was at historically low levels. However, E2 and E3 show that corporate leverage was near 20-year highs and business debt was at all-time highs in 2017. That fits the "mostly true" criterion: household leverage had fallen well below its 2007 peak by 2012 [E4] and financial-sector leverage was historically low in 2017 [E1], but corporate leverage was near 20-year highs and business debt at all-time highs [E2][E3].