Fewer American consumers resorted to bankruptcy courts last month, though the decline was minimal. A more substantial drop was recorded versus a year ago.
U.S. Bankruptcy Courts processed 67,116 total bankruptcy filings by both businesses and consumers during the month of September.
Activity slipped from the previous month, when a total of 67,712 filings were made.
The decline was more substantial compared to the 73,352 filings the same month last year.
The American Bankruptcy Institute reported the numbers on Monday.
For the first-nine months of 2015, there were total 629,750 bankruptcy filings.
The year-to-date
per-capita rate was 2.70 filings per 1,000 in population.
In Tennessee, the per-capita rate was 5.81 — the highest of any state. After that was Alabama’s 5.41 rate, then 5.08 in Georgia, 4.43 in Illinois and 4.41 in Utah.
U.S. non-commercial bankruptcy filings came to 64,920 last month, off from 65,248 in August.
During September 2014, there were 70,699 consumer bankruptcies filed.
From Jan. 1, 2015, through Sept. 30, 2015, consumer bankruptcy filings amounted to
607,182.
