While consumer bankruptcies have slowed over the past year, they picked up over the last month. The outlook, however, is for fewer bankruptcy filings this year.
The country saw total 78,471 commercial and non-commercial bankruptcies filed in January. Activity fell from December, when 75,583 debtors resorted to bankruptcy.
In January 2012, U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings totaled 88,028.
The statistics were reported by the American Bankruptcy Institute and based on data delivered by Epiq Systems Inc. The Alexandria, Va., trade group’s more than 13,000 members includes lenders and people in the legal profession.
Consumer filings accounted for 74,743 of last month’s activity, ABI said.
Consumer filings worsened from the final month of last year, when 71,817 non-commercial bankruptcy filings were made.
But bankruptcies have retreated from the first month of last year, when 83,022 consumer filings occurred.
“Filings continue to be restrained by reduced consumer spending, low interest rates and sustained deleveraging by businesses and households,” ABI Executive Director Samuel J. Gerdano said in the report. “These trends point to continued declines in bankruptcy filings in 2013.”
Including commercial and non-commercial filings, the U.S. per-capita filing rate was 3.04 per 1,000 in January.
Tennessee had last month’s highest per-capita rate: 6.02 total filings per 1,000 in population.
After that was a 5.01 per-capita rate in Alabama, then Georgia’s 4.92, Illinois’ 4.70 and Nevada’s 4.63.
