A “default on our debt” would be unprecedented in American history?

Published in Politifact:

Possible precedents for defaults

In a 2021 op-ed in The Hill, a political news outlet, Alex J. Pollock, a former Treasury Department official, argued that there are four precedents for U.S. defaults.

Pollock cited cases of the U.S. Treasury:

• Resorting to paper money largely not supported by gold during the Civil War in 1862;

• Redeeming gold bonds with paper money rather than gold coins during the Great Depression in 1933; 

• Not honoring silver certificates with an exchange of silver dollars in 1968; and

• Abandoning the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1971, which included a commitment to redeem dollars held by foreign governments for gold. 

…

Our Sources

Hakeem Jeffries, interview with NBC’s "Meet the Press," Jan. 8, 2023

Congressional Research Service, "Has the U.S. Government Ever ‘Defaulted’?" Dec. 8, 2016

Alex J. Pollock, "The US has never defaulted on its debt — except the four times it did," Oct. 7, 2021