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American consumers are drowning in debt, and soon they will just die in debt, says a new survey.

According to a new CreditCards.com study, the number of Americans with zero debt is going up (22 percent) and the number if indebted Americans is also going up.

The survey found that 21 percent of indebted Americans believe they will never pay it off. This is up from 18 percent last year, and nine percent in 2013.

For those who do believe they’ll be debt free say it’ll happen at the age of 54. Among those indebted Americans, nearly half (48 percent) purport they’ll be in debt until the age of 61 or later.

Millennials are very optimistic about getting out of debt. Just 11 percent of millennials think they’ll never be debt-free.

But who are the ones who are hopeless about their debt? White Republicans with no children. Twenty-five percent of Republicans, 24 percent of Caucasians and 23 percent of people with no children expect to die in the red.

“It’s a troubling divide. While it’s great to see more people freeing themselves from debt, the fact that more and more people still feel trapped and hopeless means that Americans still have a major problem with debt,” said Matt Schulz, CreditCards.com’s senior industry analyst.

He added: “Hopelessness can be paralyzing, but the reality is that people have more power of their debt than they realize. The most important thing is simply to take action – even small ones – to start knocking that debt down.”