July saw fewer bankruptcy filings than the prior month, while the year-over-year improvement was the best so far in 2014.
Last month, 75,170 new case filings were made in U.S. Bankruptcy Courts across the country. The total included consumer filings and business filings.
Activity fell from 77,500 filings in July and tumbled from 88,862 in August 2013. The year-over-year decline was the biggest this year.
The statistics were released Thursday by the American Bankruptcy Institute, a 13,000-member trade group based in Alexandria, Va.
August had a national per-capita rate of 3.05 bankruptcy filings per 1,000 in population. The rate eased from 3.07 in July.
The highest per-capita rate during August was in Tennessee: 6.31.
Georgia was next with a 5.31 rate, followed by Alabama’s 5.30, Utah’s 4.95 and Illinois’ 4.85.
Based solely on non-commercial activity, there were 72,467 bankruptcy filings last month.
Consumer filings eased from 74,613 in July and tumbled from 85,125 in August 2013.
From Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, there were 607,912 non-commercial bankruptcy filings.
