The number of consumers who resorted to bankruptcy last month tumbled both on a month-over-month and year-over-year basis to the lowest level in six months.
U.S. consumers and
businesses collectively made 61,308 total bankruptcy filings during July, fewer than the upwardly revised 66,303 recorded for the prior month.
There was even a bigger decline compared to the same month last year, when the number of filings made in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts was an upwardly revised 71,875.
The
numbers were reported Friday by the American Bankruptcy Institute.
Last month’s per-capita bankruptcy filing rate was 2.53 total filings per thousand in U.S. population, slightly lower than the 2.56 rate for the entire first-half 2016.
The per-capita rate in Tennessee was 5.56 — the highest of any state. After that was Alabama’s 5.34, then Georgia’s 4.62, Illinois’ 4.22 and Utah’s 4.10.
ABI reported that non-commercial bankruptcy filings accounted for 58,386 of the July 2016 total — the smallest number since January, when an upwardly revised 49,728 filings were made.
Consumer filings sank from a month earlier, when the total was an upwardly revised 62,992.
Non-commercial bankruptcies plummeted from the upwardly revised 69,214 filings a year earlier.
From Jan. 1 through July 31, consumer bankruptcies totaled
437,425.
