Credit card debt for Americans is as bad as it's ever been "in many respects," largely driven by inflation and high interest rates, says one expert.

More people are carrying credit card debt, and interest rates are at record highs, said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at CreditCards.com.

Credit card balances total $986 billion in the U.S., the highest they’ve ever been.

And the average credit card right now charges 20.69% interest, which Rossman said is the highest since they started tracking it in 1985.

Forty-six percent of people who have credit cards carry debt, and that's up from 39% a year ago, he said.

The average debt for those folks is over $5,700.

“The minimum payment math on that is just brutal,” Rossman said.

“If you make minimum payments, you're going to be in debt for more than 17 years, and you're going to pay more than $8,400 just in interest,” he added.

Sixty percent of people with credit card debt have had it for at least a year, Rossman said. A year ago, that figure was 50%.

“If you're just using cards for convenience and rewards, you're winning, versus if you're trapped in this cycle of 20-plus percent interest rates,” he said. “That's a huge difference.”

CreditCards.com, a sister site of Bankrate, published a ranking of states based on debt burden. They weighed the average outstanding card balance in each state against the average incomes to gauge how well-equipped folks were for paying off their debt.

Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico and Nevada have the highest credit card debt burdens, they said.

People often get into credit card debt for very practical reasons, Rossman said. It's often used for an emergency expense, or their day-to-day living costs are simply outpacing their paychecks.

But Rossman offered some solutions for people suffering under credit card debt.

The best option for people with good credit is to transfer their balance to a card that has an interest-free promotional period, which can last as long as 21 months.

These 0% balance transfers usually come with a 3-5% fee, but that’s still going to save substantial amounts of money over the typical 20% credit card interest rate.

“That could be a tremendous tailwind when it comes to debt payoff,” he said.

The key is to be disciplined about paying off the balance before the interest-free period ends.

For folks with worse credit, a nonprofit credit counseling agency might be able to help.

He said reputable agencies can negotiate lower interest rates with the card companies, maybe 7- 8%, and put you on a debt management plan to fully repay the balance in four or five years.

Money Management International and GreenPath Financial Wellness are two of the biggest, he said.

And he offered a warning about for-profit debt settlement companies.

“There's kind of a fine line, but an important line, between (a nonprofit credit counseling agency) and debt settlement,” Rossman said. “I actually don't like debt settlement, because those for-profit agencies, they make a great pitch like, ‘Hey, do you want to get out of credit card debt for pennies on the dollar?’ The tactic there is to stop paying for a while. They try to negotiate a settlement. It trashes your credit, because you have late payments, (and) settling for less than you owe is a negative in the eyes of the credit bureaus. So, I would kind of set that part aside.”

An in-between option could be getting a personal loan to pay off credit card debt, because that loan would have a lower interest rate, he said.

But Rossman said people would need good credit to take advantage of that option, and he thinks the 0% balance transfer card is the better option for those folks. That’s as long as they can pay the balance off in around two years vs. the longer term of a personal loan, which could perhaps give you five years.