Washington ? The federal government registered a record budget deficit for the month of November, reflecting the impact of a recession on tax receipts and the mounting costs of the $700 billion financial rescue program.

The country remains on track to hit a record deficit of $1 trillion or more for the entire year, which would be more than double the previous all-time high set last year.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the gap between the government’s revenue collections and what it paid out last month totaled $164.4 billion, the largest deficit ever recorded for the month of November.

In just the first two months of this budget year, the deficit now totals $401.6 billion. A deficit of $1 trillion for the year would set a new record-high in dollar terms, and would be the largest as a percentage of the overall economy since World War II.

A $1 trillion gap would equal 6.7 percent of the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output in a single year. That would surpass the previous postwar high of 6 percent in GDP terms set in 1983 when Ronald Reagan was president.

And some economists think estimates of a $1 trillion deficit for this year are too low. David Rosenberg, North American economist at Merrill Lynch, projected that it could reach $1.5 trillion, depending on how large an economic stimulus package is approved next year.

While the November deficit was slightly lower than the $172.5 billion that economists had been expecting, the total for the past two months is well above the red ink ever recorded in a similar two-month period.

The deficit is being driven higher by the $700 billion rescue package Congress passed on Oct. 3 in an effort to deal with the most serious financial crisis to hit the country since the 1930s.