By Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON A debt limit meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and top lawmakers that had been scheduled for Friday has been postponed, and the leaders agreed to meet early next week, a White House spokesperson said on Thursday.

"Staff will continue working and all the principals agreed to meet early next week," the spokesperson said.

Aides to Biden, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and Democrats Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer met Wednesday and Thursday to discuss raising the debt ceiling, the White House said earlier.

The aides have started to discuss ways to limit federal spending, as talks on raising the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling to avoid a catastrophic default creep forward, people familiar with the discussions said.

White House officials acknowledge that they must accept some spending cuts or strict caps on future spending if they are to strike a deal, two sources said, while insisting they must preserve Biden's signature climate legislation that passed along party lines last year.

The White House portrayed the postponement as a positive development, with meetings progressing.

The U.S. federal government could run out of money to pay its bills as soon as June 1, the Treasury said, unless the debt ceiling is raised. Biden is set to leave the country next week to attend the G7 meeting in Japan, and there are just a few days left when he and House and Senate leadership will be in town before that deadline.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Jarrett Renshaw and Rami Ayyub, writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Scott Malone and Eric Beech)