Over the last several decades, a growing share of total personal income has shifted away from traditional salaries/wages and more toward government transfer payments.
The US government does not have a surplus of cash available to continue funding these growing transfer payments and thus relies on new debt to pay for various programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Unemployment Insurance.
These programs are referred to as "automatic stabilizers," which means that they work to stabilize or smooth the volatility of household income during turbulent economic times.
As the growth rate in the economy