The number of new bankruptcy filings by American consumers moved lower for the second month in a row, and the outlook is for more of the same.
Businesses and consumers filed a combined 85,664 bankruptcies during May. Filings retreated from 88,137 in the previous month, when bankruptcies were also down.
An 11 percent decline in total filings was recorded compared to the same month last year, when a collective 96,495 commercial and non-commercial filings were made.
The statistics were reported Wednesday by the American Bankruptcy Institute, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group with more than 13,000 members.
“Bankruptcy filings continue to nose dive in the current environment of sustained low interest rates for business borrowers and lower than expected consumer spending,” ABI Executive Director Samuel J. Gerdano stated in the report. “As these conditions persist, bankruptcy filings will continue to decrease.”
May saw 3.13 filings made per 1,000 in population. That was slightly worse than the 3.09 per-capita rate previously reported for a month earlier.
Tennessee maintained its grip on its designation as the state with the worst per-capita rate: 6.30.
The non-commercial portion of last month’s activity amounted to 82,474 filings.
Consumer activity retreated from 84,750 bankruptcies in April. The month-earlier number was originally reported at 84,579 filings.
A more substantial decline has occurred since May 2013, when filings totaled 92,440, revised up from 92,413.
The latest activity brought total new consumer filings in U.S. bankruptcy courts to 389,828 for the period from Jan. 1 through May 31.
