A sharp drop in monthly consumer bankruptcy filings was complimented by a year-over-year improvement. States with the most filings per capita were concentrated in the South.
U.S Bankruptcy Courts saw a preliminary 57,569 overall new filings during September.
The total reflected both commercial and non-commercial bankruptcies.
Bankruptcy filings sank 16 percent from the previously reported level the preceding month. A 4 percent decline was recorded compared to the downwardly revised level a year previous.
The statistics
were reported Wednesday by the Alexandria, Virginia-based American Bankruptcy Institute.
There were 2.48 bankruptcy filings for each thousand people during the first eight months of 2018, a little better than
the 2.49 per-capita rate as of July.
All of the states with the four-highest per-capita rates were in the South, with Alabama’s 5.68 rate followed by 5.52 in Tennessee, 4.60 in Georgia and 4.28 in Mississippi. Rounding out the top five was Illinois, where the per-capita rate was 3.75.
Consumer bankruptcies made up 54,786 of last month’s filings — the fewest since February’s 53,899. August’s filings were 65,335, and the total was a downwardly revised 57,110 for September 2017.
From Jan. 1 through Sept. 30,
consumer bankruptcy filings came to 548,361.
