Not only did the number of new bankruptcy filings by consumers decline last month, but it was lower for all of last year.
Both consumers and businesses filed a combined 53,806 new bankruptcy cases during the final month of last year.
Bankruptcy Courts were less busy than they were in November, a month that saw a previously reported 65,511 filings.
Bankruptcies also descended from December 2014, when 63,202 filings were made.
The details were reported by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
For all of 2015, there were 2.63 bankruptcy filings per each thousand in U.S. population.
The per-capita rate fell from 2.93 during 2014.
Tennessee had the highest per-capita rate of any state last year: 5.73.
Alabama was No. 2 with a per-capita rate of 5.36, then
Georgia’s 5.02, Illinois’ 4.34 and Utah’s 4.28.
ABI reported that
51,171 of December 2015’s total filings were non-commercial bankruptcies.
Consumer filings retreated from
63,233 a month earlier and 60,700 a year earlier.
For all 12 months of last year, non-commercial bankruptcy filings amounted to
789,222 — fewer than the 875,648 total consumer bankruptcies in 2014.
