Business and Non-business Filings (Years Ended December 31, 2002-2008
)
Year
Total
Non-Business
Business
2008
1,117,771
1,074,225
43,546
2007
850,912
822,950
28,322
2006
617,660
597,965
19,695
2005
2,078,415
2,039,214
39,201
2004
1,597,462
1,563,145
34,317
2003
1,660,245
1,625,208
35,037
2002
1,577,651
1,539,111
38,540
1,416,902
people filed bankruptcy in the
year ended December 31, 2008.
There
were 1,074,225 personal bankruptcies filed in
the year ended December 31, 2008. So that means that 1,074,225 people
filed bankruptcy. Right? Wrong!
The
statistics include joint filings, for example for husband and
wife. In
accordance with a study reported in September, 2001, Young, Old,
and in Between: Who Files for Bankruptcy? By Dr. Teresa Sullivan, Dr. Deborah Thorne and Professor Elizabeth Warren 31.9 % of
the filings for the year ended June 30, 2001 were joint filings of husband
and wife.
To
approximate the number of people filing bankruptcy we must increase
the filings by 31.9% to get 1,416,902 people who filed bankruptcy in
the year ended December 31, 2008.
Source: The Fragile Middle
Class: Americans in Debt;
Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School; Smith Business Solutions
The typical family
filing for bankruptcy in 1997 owed more than one and a half times
its annual income in short-term, high-interest debt. A family earning
$24,000 had an average of $36,000 in credit card and similar debt.
Federal
Reserve (1997)
Kmart
Tops U.S. Retail Bankruptcies List(Back)
Kmart Corp. is the biggest U.S. retailer to declare bankruptcy, according
to data going back to 1980,
with total pre-bankruptcy assets of more than $17 billion, Reuters reported. The following list ranks the 10 largest U.S. retail bankruptcies
since 1980, by total assets before bankruptcy, based on figures from BankruptcyData.com:
COMPANY
(Note: Ames Department Stores are included twice as they filed twice)
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