A bankruptcy trade group estimates that 1.6 million consumer bankruptcies will be filed this year.
Retail borrowers and other consumers filed 132,173 bankruptcies during October, edging higher from 130,329 the prior month, the American Bankruptcy Institute reported.
A year earlier, the figure was a then-record 135,913 bankruptcies.
From January through the end of last month, 1,297,345 filings occurred.
Samuel J. Gerdano, executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based group, said in the report that nearly 1.6 million consumer bankruptcy filings are expected for all of 2010.
ABI said its statistics are based on data supplied by the National Bankruptcy Research Center.
The report indicated that 29.7 percent of October’s activity was Chapter 13 filings, accounting for roughly 39,250 of the bankruptcies. A month earlier, around 39,100 Chapter 13 bankruptcies were filed. Approximately 38,700 Chapter 13 filings were made in the same month last year.
