Some Telling Bankruptcy Statistics

There are a lot of factors that go into any set of statistics and bankruptcy statistics are no different. The recent hard economic times would infer that bankruptcy statistics will show a rise in the number of filings from last year to this year and indeed this does seem to be the case with the bankruptcy statistics. In September of 2006 there were 96,442 Chapter 7 filing. Chapter 7 is the form of bankruptcy where the court liqudates your assets and uses the proceeds to pay the creditors that the court deems to be worthy of paying back. In September of 2007 that number skyrocketed to 132,008. There are a lot of factors that could have caused this but obviously the failing US economy, further deflated by the mortgage foreclosure rate rising sharply for the same period, is causing many people to seek refuge behind a Chapter 7 bankruptcy to try and get a fresh start in life years down the road.

However the news about bankruptcy statistics is not necessarily all bad and does indicate that people are attempting to hang in there with their finances. In 2006 the federal bankruptcy court reported a total of 1,112,542 business and non-business filings for the year ending in September. However the bankruptcy statistics show that for the same period that ended in September of 2007 there were a total of 801,269 business and non-business bankruptcy filings which is down by over 300,000 filings. It is hard to say why the bankruptcy statistics show such a sharp drop in filings but it is suspected that toughening laws regarding personal bankruptcy had a lot do with it as business filings were only off by 1,408 for the same period with that number being the drop from 2006 to 2007 which is definitely a sharp contrast to the personal bankruptcy statistics.

Breaking It Down Even Further

Looking closely at these numbers we can see that the drop was definitely affected by the sharp drop in Chapter 7 filings. In 2006 there were 833,147 Chapter 7 filings while for the same period ending in 2007 the Chapter 7 filings had plummeted to 484,162. Once again this sharp increase could be attributed to a number of factors including the law changes that have made filing for personal bankruptcy more difficult. Since Chapter 7 is the preferred filing for personal bankruptcy then this is a logical assumption to make. However this may not be the case as this is only based on the statistics and not an in depth analysis.

Looking at the bankruptcy statistics can make you think that bankruptcy is not what it used to be but it is conceivable with all of the failing mortgages in 2007 that we could see the 2008 bankruptcy number jump again.