Whether on a month-over-month basis or a year-over-year basis, the number of consumers who resorted to bankruptcy last month retreated.
New cases filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, including commercial and non-commercial filings, numbered
52,522 during the first month of this year.
That was fewer new bankruptcy filings than in the final month of last year, when businesses and consumers filed a combined 53,829 new cases.
Activity also slowed from the 59,092 filings made in January 2015, according to a report released Thursday from the American Bankruptcy Institute.
The report indicated that the per-capita rate last month was 2.02 total filings per thousand in population.
In Tennessee, the per-capita rate was 4.82 — the highest of any state.
After that was Alabama’s 4.35 per-capita rate, then Georgia’s 4.26, Illinois’ 3.48 and Delaware’s 3.23.
Non-commercial filings totaled
49,720 during January 2016.
Consumer filings
declined from December 2015, when a downwardly revised 51,169 non-commercial bankruptcies were filed.
An even bigger drop was recorded from January 2015, when 56,611 non-commercial bankruptcies were filed.
