Nationwide bankruptcy filings were about 5 percent lower in June 2016 compared with a year earlier, continuing an ongoing trend of decline, according to June 2016 AACER bankruptcy data [1] reported by Epiq Systems [2].
Bankruptcy filings totaled 66,284 in June, which was actually a slight increase from May’s total of 66,094, but was nearly 5 percent lower than June 2015’s total of 69,772 (a decline of 3,488). Year-to-date, there have been 398,495 bankruptcy filings nationwide for the first half of 2016 (about 66,415 per month), down from 2015’s year-to-date total through the end of June of 422,782 (about 70,463 per month).
The average number of filings per day in June 2016 was 3,012 over 22 days, which is a decline from May’s daily average of 3,147 over 21 days. The extra filing day in June compared to May accounts for the slight increase in the number of filings in June; had June featured 21 filing days, there would have been nearly 3,000 fewer filings during the month than in May. Bankruptcy filings have averaged 3,162 for the first six months of 2016 over a period of 126 filing days.
June’s total of 66,284 bankruptcy filings was less than half of the peak total for the month of June recorded in 2010 (134,797).
Click HERE to view the entire report [3]
The state with the most cumulative filings for the first six months of 2016 was again California with 37,248 after adding about 6,200 more in June. As has been the trend, Illinois was second in year-to-date filings with 27,680, after adding another 4,200 in June. The same three states ranked third through fifth in June as they did in May: Florida (23,234), Georgia (22,841), and Ohio (18,827).
Tennessee and Alabama continued to rank first and second among states in bankruptcy filings per capita for June with 5.63 and 5.37 for every 10,000 people, respectively. Those numbers were virtually the same as May’s numbers. The national average of filings per capita in June 2016 held steady over-the-month at 2.56, though it has increased by more than 50 basis points since January 2016’s average of 2.02 percent.