JULY 2004

Personal Bankruptcies Improved from a Year Ago

Consistent with the continuing signs of a strengthening economy, personal bankruptcy filing rates in the U.S. remain somewhat below the levels a year ago. Using data compiled from courthouse records, the National Bankruptcy Research Center (Lundquist Consulting, Burlingame, CA) reports that through the first 26 weeks of 2004 (as of July 3), personal bankruptcy filings are down 3.7% from the same period in 2003. The chart below displays the week-by-week filings over the past four years. Personal bankruptcy filings for the first half of 2004 totaled 822,604 petitions. Generally speaking, each petition corresponds to a household.

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