MAY 2004

Personal Bankruptcies Still Down
From a Year Ago

Continued good economic news seems to be helping the personal bankruptcy picture, although not as much as one might hope. Using data compiled from courthouse records, the National Bankruptcy Research Center (Lundquist Consulting, Burlingame, CA) reports that through the first 16 weeks of 2004 (as of April 24th), personal bankruptcy filings are down 3.0% from the same period in 2003. The chart below displays the week-by-week filings over the past four years. Any decline from last year’s record-high filings is welcome, but the relatively small magnitude thus far seems indicative of a higher steady-state level of bankruptcies under the current law to which the industry must become accustomed.

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