Nationwide bankruptcy filings were 5 percent lower in September 2016 compared with a year earlier, contrasting with last month’s reported increase, according to September 2016 AACER bankruptcy data reported by Epiq Systems.
Bankruptcy filings totaled 64,592 in September, which was an increase from August’s total of 68,522, and was approximately 1.1 percent higher than September 2015’s total of 67,171 (an increase of 1,351). Year-to-date, there have been 593,034 bankruptcy filings nationwide for the past nine months of 2016 (about 65,893 per month), down from 2015’s year-to-date total through the end of September of 629,750 (about 69,972 per month).
The average number of filings per day in September 2016 was 3,076 over 21 days, which is an increase from August’s daily average of 2,979 over 23 days. The extra two filing days in August compared to September accounts for the slight increase in the number of filings in August; had September featured 23 filing days, there would have been over 100 more filings averaged per day than in August. Bankruptcy filings have averaged 3,116 for the past nine months of 2016 over a period of 190 filing days.
September’s total of 64,592 bankruptcy filings was nearly half of the peak total for the month of August recorded in 2010 of 135,771.
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The state with the most cumulative filings for the past nine months of 2016 was again California with 55,361. As has been the trend, Illinois was second in year-to-date filings with 40,590. The next three states with the most cumulative filings were Georgia (35,002), Florida (34,099), and Ohio (27,949).
Tennessee and Alabama continued to rank first and second among states in bankruptcy filings per capita for September with 5.67 and 5.52 for every 10,000 people, respectively. Those numbers were virtually the same as August’s numbers. The national average of filings per capita in September 2016 held steady over-the-month at 2.54, 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.