National Bankruptcy Rates Fall Further

Nationwide bankruptcy filings were about 14 percent lower in July 2016 compared with a year earlier, continuing an ongoing trend of decline, according to July 2016 AACER bankruptcy data reported by Epiq Systems.

Bankruptcy filings totaled 61,308 in July, which was a decrease from June’s total of 66,303, but was over 14 percent lower than July 2015’s total of 71,875 (a decline of 10,567).  Year-to-date, there have been 459,845 bankruptcy filings nationwide for the first half of 2016 (about 65,692 per month), down from 2015’s year-to-date total through the end of July of 494,795 (about 70,685 per month).

The average number of filings per day in July 2016 was 3,065 over 20 days, which is an increase from June’s daily average of 3,014 over 22 days. The extra two filing days in June compared to July accounts for the slight increase in the number of filings in July; had July featured 22 filing days, there would have been nearly 300 fewer filings averaged per day than in June. Bankruptcy filings have averaged 3,142 for the first seven months of 2016 over a period of 146 filing days.

July’s total of 61,308 bankruptcy filings was less than half of the peak total for the month of July recorded in 2010 of 134,797.

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The state with the most cumulative filings for the first six months of 2016 was again California with 43,109. As has been the trend, Illinois was second in year-to-date filings with 31,795. The same three states ranked third through fifth in July as they did in June: Florida (26,735), Georgia (26,485), and Ohio (21,687).

Tennessee and Alabama continued to rank first and second among states in bankruptcy filings per capita for July with 5.56 and 5.34 for every 10,000 people, respectively. Those numbers were virtually the same as June’s numbers. The national average of filings per capita in July 2016 held steady over-the-month at 2.53, though it has increased by about 50 basis points since January 2016’s average of 2.02 percent.

Epiq Systems is a leading global provider of technology-enabled solutions for electronic discovery, bankruptcy and class action administration. Top legal professionals depend on us for deep subject-matter expertise and years of firsthand experience working on many of the largest, most high-profile and complex client engagements. Epiq Systems, Inc. has locations in the United States, Europe and Asia.