A sharp increase over the preceding month was recorded for U.S. consumers who resorted to the bankruptcy courts. But filings eased somewhat from a year ago.
Including commercial and non-commercial bankruptcies, there were 68,117 filings during August 2017. That was an 11 percent increase from the prior month.
But businesses and consumers filed fewer new cases compared to the same month last year, with a less than 1 percent year-over-year retreat recorded.
The details were published Thursday by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Last month’s U.S. per-capita rate was 2.55 filings per thousand in population. The rate in Alabama was 5.82 — more than any other state. After that was Tennessee’s 5.66, then Georgia’s 4.75, Mississippi’s 4.16 and Utah’s 4.12.
Consumers were responsible for 64,862 of the latest monthly total, according to the ABI.
Non-commercial filings jumped
from a downwardly revised 58,517 in July. But, as was the case with overall filings, consumer bankruptcies retreated from an upwardly revised 65,300 in August 2016.
During the eight months ended Aug. 31, 2017, there were 503,067 consumer bankruptcies filed based on historical data from the ABI.
