A Proverb says that the borrower is a slave to the lender. This is especially true for those trapped in the cycle of credit card debt. But some good news from a survey done by WalletHub reports that Americans are paying down their consumer debt at record levels. In fact, Americans paid off nearly $83 billion in credit card debt in 2020, which is only “the second time in the past 35 years we’ve even ended the year owing less credit card debt than we started with,” according to WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez, Of course, federal stimulus checks, expanded unemployment benefits and deferred loan repayments helped. But the fact that Americans are paying off debt is good news. This is because getting out of debt empowers individuals and puts them in a place of security rather than in a place of vulnerability to credit card companies.