The number of consumers who turned to bankruptcy last month was lower. Year-over-year filings also improved.
Consumer bankruptcy filings totaled 108,517 during September.
Filings slipped from 113,432 bankruptcies in August, when there was one more day in the month.
The findings were based on data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center and reported by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Bankruptcies have tumbled from September 2010, when filings numbered 130,329.
“The trend of declining filings has been consistent with consumers continuing to rein in their spending, household debt, and an overall pull back in consumer credit,” ABI Executive Director Samuel J. Gerdano said in the report.
ABI said that 1,044,722 consumer bankruptcies were filed during the first nine months of 2011. That was an improvement from the 1,165,172 filings that had been made by the same point last year.
Chapter 13 filings accounted for 30 percent of last month’s total filings. That put the number of chapter 13 bankruptcies at around 32,550 — also better than last month’s approximately 34,000 chapter 13 bankruptcies.
A year earlier, chapter 13 activity amounted to roughly 39,100 filings.
