By Tim Mullaney, USA TODAY
Standard & Poor’s boosted its outlook for U.S. government debt Monday, citing stable government debt levels and predicting the U.S. economy will continue to improve.
The credit rating service affirmed the U.S. government’s “AA+” long-term and “A-1+” short-term unsolicited sovereign credit ratings. It revised the outlook for Treasuries to “stable” from “negative,” meaning S&P is less likely to downgrade U.S. bonds soon.
S&P’s rating on the government’s long-term bonds is a notch below the firm’s top AAA rating, which the U.S. lost in 2011.