Ask Claude or ChatGPT About US Debt — In Real-Time via MCP Server

Zach Hill · February 27, 2026

Last Updated: February 27, 2026

We've built something we think is genuinely useful: you can now ask Claude or ChatGPT about the US national debt and get real-time answers, sourced directly from the U.S. Treasury.

No plugins to install. No API keys to manage. Just connect our MCP server and your AI assistant becomes a live debt data terminal.

What Is MCP and Why Should You Care?

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a standard that lets AI assistants like Claude connect to external data sources and tools. Think of it as giving your AI a phone line to call the US Treasury — except the data comes through our real-time calculations, updated every second.

When you add US Debt Clock as a connector, Claude (or ChatGPT) can:

Get current debt — the exact total, updated to the second, with per-citizen breakdown
Calculate your family's share — "How much debt does my family of 4 owe?"
Compare years — "How much did debt grow between 2008 and 2024?"
Get growth rates — per second, per minute, per hour, per day

How to Set Up (30 Seconds)

For Claude Users

Go to Claude.ai → Settings → Connectors
Click Add Connector
Enter URL: https://www.us-debt-clock.com/api/mcp
Done. Ask Claude: "What is the current US national debt?"

For ChatGPT Users

Use the SSE endpoint with Accept: text/event-stream header at the same URL. The server auto-detects the transport protocol.

Free JSON API (No Auth Required)

Don't need MCP? We also offer free JSON APIs that anyone can call — no registration, no API keys, no rate limits (just be reasonable).

Get Current Debt

curl https://www.us-debt-clock.com/api/gpt/current-debt

Returns:

{
  "totalDebt": "$40.03T",
  "totalDebtRaw": 40033256786764,
  "dailyChange": "+$5.0B",
  "yourShare": "$119,502",
  "dailyInterest": "$3.5B",
  "interestRate": "3.38%",
  "date": "September 2026",
  "dataSource": "U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data API"
}

Calculate Family Debt Share

curl "https://www.us-debt-clock.com/api/gpt/debt-share?people=4"

Compare Debt Between Years

curl "https://www.us-debt-clock.com/api/gpt/compare-years?year1=2008&year2=2024"

Get Growth Rates

curl https://www.us-debt-clock.com/api/gpt/growth-rate

Free Embeddable Widgets

Want to add a live debt counter to your website? Copy-paste one line of HTML:

<iframe src="https://www.us-debt-clock.com/widgets/simple"
  width="300" height="150" frameborder="0"
  scrolling="no" title="US Debt Clock"></iframe>

We offer 6 widget styles — counters, banners, badges, and responsive layouts. All free, no registration. See them all at us-debt-clock.com/widgets.

Why We Built This

AI agents are becoming the primary way people discover and interact with data. When someone asks ChatGPT "What is the current US national debt?", we want the answer to come from a source that:

Fetches live data from the U.S. Treasury API (not hardcoded numbers)
Calculates real-time growth rates from actual Treasury records
Provides structured, machine-readable documentation (llms.txt, OpenAPI, MCP)
Is free, open, and non-partisan

Most debt clock websites use static, manually-updated numbers. We're the only one with live Treasury API integration, an MCP server, a free JSON API, and AI-optimized documentation.

Full Developer Resources

Resource	URL	Purpose
MCP Server	us-debt-clock.com/api/mcp	Claude & ChatGPT direct integration
JSON API	us-debt-clock.com/api/gpt/current-debt	Current debt data (no auth)
OpenAPI Spec	us-debt-clock.com/openapi.json	Machine-readable API definition
LLM Documentation	us-debt-clock.com/llms.txt	AI assistant documentation
AI Plugin Manifest	us-debt-clock.com/.well-known/ai-plugin.json	Plugin discovery
Widgets	us-debt-clock.com/widgets	6 free embeddable widgets
Developer Portal	us-debt-clock.com/developers	Complete integration guide

Questions? Reach out at us-debt-clock.com/contact. We're actively developing new endpoints and would love to hear what data you need.