Work

America Off Balance

America's national debt crisis is complicated. America Off Balance breaks it down, explains how it will affect you, and empowers you to solve it.

The challenge

America’s ballooning debt has the potential to throw the country and its citizens into turmoil. The current national deficit is so large it’s hard for most to fathom. And yet this debt, already in the trillions, will impact generations to come. How do we sound the alarm to millennials about something so calamitous yet so mind-numbingly difficult to understand?

America Off Balance is a 3-part digital storytelling experience that demystifies the national deficit and invites both the general public and economic experts to try their hand at reconciling the unrealistic promises of politicians from both parties.

A person stands beneath a large, suspended weight, symbolizing financial stress. The weight hangs from a chain made of dollar bills against a solid green background. The individual appears small and contemplative compared to the looming weight above.
Illustration of a small person struggling to push a large coin labeled "LIBERTY" up one side of a seesaw, which is balanced on a triangular pivot against an orange background.
An illustration of a bald eagle with widespread wings on a light blue background. The eagle's body is replaced with a calculator. It holds an olive branch in its left talon and a bundle of arrows in its right talon.

Bringing the story to life

As we wrote this piece, we wrestled with content that could quickly overwhelm and jade audiences. We made it a point to speak directly to the user, in plain language and easy-to-understand sentences. In order to demystify the astronomical numbers and what they mean for everyday Americans, we painted scenarios of what a future with crippling debt would look like.

We leaned into analogies and metaphors that could help ground the issue of the national debt in ideas that were closer to home. And for visual elements, we referenced popular publications such as the New Yorker and The Economist to gather editorial inspiration that would resonate with savvy, politically-engaged millennials.

Breaking down our national debt

We started with a short explainer designed to walk the general readers through the magnitude of the challenge in under a minute. A key goal of this work was to raise the alarm amongst the politically-engaged general public.

Balancing the budget

The second chapter is a choose-your-own adventure experience, where curious economic enthusiasts can try their hand at applying some of the most commonly touted solutions. The nature of partisan discourse has made it difficult for politicians to talk transparently about the costs, both direct and indirect, associated with fixing the budget. We wanted to normalize the inevitability of tradeoffs and show that a perfect solution may never exist. The trade-offs are, of course, frustrating and illuminating.

A graph with a black background shows an increasing gradient from yellow to red over time, representing GDP debt from 2018 to 2048. The objective is to keep debt below 100% of GDP over 30 years. Labels identify 140% of GDP and the below 100% GDP goal.
Three smartphones display different policy suggestions on their screens. The first shows increasing immigration with an illustration of immigrants. The second suggests growing the economy, depicted with a person and dollar sign. The third proposes raising taxes, shown with a graph.
A webpage with a turquoise background has a title asking, "What do you think would make the biggest impact?" Below are three buttons: "Raise Taxes," "Cut Spending," and "Grow the Economy." A colorful horizontal bar chart is on the right side, showing 2025 GDP and debt projections.

A budget calculator for the pros

The final chapter is a budget calculator, targeted to economic bloggers and policy staffers from across the political system. It is designed as an industry-standard tool for practitioners to assess proposals and make important decisions and recommendations. Using real-time data, users can enact policies, slash costs, and grow the economy to show off their budget strategy. This first-of-its-kind tool is already being used in university classrooms and financial think tanks.

  • 500+
    advanced users published budgets
  • 1000+
    federal budgets created on the calculator
  • 5 min
    average time to create a budget
Hyperakt made this product as accessible as ever! They were fun to work with—solving high-level UX problems is no easy feat.
Daniel Heil
Lead Economist, The Hoover Institution

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