The U.S. federal government reported a budget deficit of 137.3 billion dollars in November, the U.S. Treasury Department announced on Monday.

A major reason for the much lower budget deficit in the first two months than that of last year is an accounting shift. Roughly 31 billion dollars in benefit payments for October went out in late September. Federal benefits are paid on the first day of the month. But because Oct. 1 fell on a Saturday, the payments went out a day earlier and were accounted for in last year's deficit.

The U.S. federal government raked in a revenue of 152.4 billion dollars in November, and registered outlays of 289.7 billion dollars. In the first two month of this budget year, the U.S. government collected 315.5 billion dollars. That was up 4.7 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile, it spent 551.2 billion dollars, down 5.8 percent from a year ago. But it mostly reflects the benefit shift.

In the 2009 fiscal year, U.S. federal government's fiscal imbalance recorded an all time high level of 1.41 trillion dollars and fell slightly to 1.29 trillion dollars in the 2010 fiscal year.

Currently, the nation's total public debt is about 15 trillion dollars, according to the Treasury.

Economists held that it is still challenging for the country to keep its fiscal sustainability as the economy is merely on slow recovery.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet