A quarter of Americans expect to die in debt
Americans who are in debt don’t have an optimistic view of the future.
In fact, nearly two-thirds of Americans in debt don’t know when, or if, they will ever completely pay off their debt — including 25% of debtors who expect to die in debt, according to a new survey from CreditCards.com.
The debt pessimism isn’t constant across age groups, however, and 35% of Americans overall believe they will pay off their debt at some point in life.
Millennials were the most optimistic generation when it came to paying off their debt, with only about 20% of respondents indicating they would never be debt-free. The opposite was true for the Silent Generation, defined as those above age 73, which indicated a larger percentage, about 30% believed they were destined to die in the red.
Strangely, households with less income indicated they believed they would pay debt off sooner, according to the survey. Households with total income below $50,000 listed 47 as the average age they would be debt-free compared to age 55 for households with total income above $50,000.
Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that they had a strategy in place to pay down credit card debt, with nearly 70% saying paying substantially more than their minimum monthly payment was their default.
Zack Guzman is a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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