Nationwide bankruptcy filings were about 1 percent higher in August 2016 compared with a year earlier, breaking an ongoing trend of decline, according to August 2016 AACER bankruptcy data reported by Epiq Systems [1].
Bankruptcy filings totaled 68,495 in August, which was an increase from July’s total of 61,340, and was approximately 1.1 percent higher than August 2015’s total of 67,777 (an increase of 718). Year-to-date, there have been 528,397 bankruptcy filings nationwide for the first eight months of 2016 (about 66,049 per month), down from 2015’s year-to-date total through the end of August of 562,579 (about 70,322 per month).
The average number of filings per day in August 2016 was 2,978 over 23 days, which is a decrease from July’s daily average of 3,067 over 20 days. The extra three filing days in August compared to July accounts for the slight increase in the number of filings in July; had August featured 20 filing days, there would have been over 400 more filings averaged per day than in July. Bankruptcy filings have averaged 3,121 for the first eight months of 2016 over a period of 169 filing days.
August’s total of 68,495 bankruptcy filings was just over half of the peak total for the month of August recorded in 2010 of 135,771.
Click HERE to View the Entire Report [2]
The state with the most cumulative filings for the first eight months of 2016 was again California with 49,564. As has been the trend, Illinois was second in year-to-date filings with 36,371. The next three states with the most cumulative filings were Georgia (30,751), Florida (30,640), and Ohio (24,986).
Tennessee and Alabama continued to rank first and second among states in bankruptcy filings per capita for August with 5.63 and 5.45 for every 10,000 people, respectively. Those numbers were virtually the same as July’s numbers. The national average of filings per capita in August 2016 held steady over-the-month at 2.55, 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.
