Washington, Dec 13 (IANS): The US federal government reported a budget deficit of $137.3 billion in November, the US Treasury Department announced Monday.

That brought the total budget deficit of the first two months of the 2012 fiscal year to $235.8 billion, lower than the $290.8 billion in the same period a year earlier, reported Xinhua.

A major reason for the much lower budget deficit in the first two months than those of last year is an accounting shift. Roughly $31 billion 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 US federal government raked in a revenue of $152.4 billion in November, and registered outlays of $289.7 billion. In the first two months of this budget year, the US government collected $315.5 billion. That was up 4.7 percent from a year ago.

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

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

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