As the annual volume of new bankruptcies decreased for the eighth year in a row, monthly consumer filings declined to the lowest level in a decade.
Total
bankruptcies that were filed during December 2017, including commercial and non-commercial filings, numbered 52,522.
That turned out to be fewer filings than 60,287 the preceding month. The number was also down from the upwardly revised 56,435 in the same month during 2016.
The American Bankruptcy Institute reported the statistics Friday.
Full-year 2017 filings amounted to 766,698,
retreating from 772,098 in the previous 12-month period. It was the eighth consecutive annual decline, according to the ABI.
The per-capita rate slipped to 2.47 filings per thousand in population from 2.48 in 2016.
In Alabama, the 2017 per-capita rate was 5.66, worse than any other state. After that was Tennessee’s 5.51, then Georgia’s 4.66, Mississippi’s 4.12 and Utah’s 3.96.
Last month’s U.S. non-commercial filings numbered 49,497 — the fewest consumer monthly bankruptcies since at least 2007 based on the oldest data maintained by Mortgage Daily.
Consumer filings were 57,302 in November 2017 and a downwardly revised 53,468 in December 2016.
For all of 2017, there were 728,386 non-commercial bankruptcy filings,
slightly fewer than the upwardly revised 733,902 the previous year.
