MARKETS

A Five Percent Yield Rewrites Every Forecast Built Below It

The 10-year Treasury yield topped 5% in September 2026, its highest level since 2007 and far above the Congressional Budget Office's February outlook, which projected 4.1% for the year and 4.2% for 2027. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that if yields stay more than 80 basis points above baseline, annual interest payments reach $2.7 trillion by the end of the decade.

At that level interest exceeds Medicare or Social Security retirement benefits, turning a line item into the largest single outflow in the budget. With $40 trillion in accumulated debt and $2 trillion annual deficits, the money leaving each year is no longer a residual of policy choices but the constraint on them. Maya MacGuineas of the CFRB described the mechanism plainly: interest begets debt, and debt begets interest.

Rendal Post Staff · Published September 20, 2026