[kakwa_]

The debt amount is very roughly proportional to the size of the economy.

It's also a system that is unstable in non-booming economies, drifts over time and needs periodic resets (through revolution, debt cancelling or inflation for example).

When dealing with material well-being, it makes much more sense to focus on goods and services and frame things more in the line of "would you trade a bit of wealth (smaller car or home, less Uber Eat, etc) to ensure a few unlucky people have food and roof".

Most western economies, specially one as wasteful as the US, have the luxury to make this choice. Not sharing it is a political & ideological decision, not a materially constrained one.