This paper develops a new approach, coined as the stock approach, to calculate the steady-state output loss caused by public debt in the Solow model. The novelty of our stock approach is that it provides a closed-form solution to the steady-state output-debt relationship. The main conclusion of the paper is that the steady-state burden of public debt is country-specific in the Solow model and it decreases with the autonomous private saving rate and increases with the population growth rate.