NOVEMBER 2004

Employment Growth Fails
to Bring Down Bankruptcies

Stronger employment growth has yet to make itself felt in the personal bankruptcy statistics. Personal bankruptcies remain stuck in a year-long track that has kept them about 3 percent below last year's volume. Using data compiled from courthouse records, the National Bankruptcy Research Center (Lundquist Consulting, Burlingame CA) reports that through the first 43 weeks of 2004 (as of October 30) personal bankruptcy filings were only about 3.5% lower than the same 43-week period in 2003. The chart below displays week-by-week filings for the past four years. Bankruptcies lag changes in employment, so there is still hope that fourth quarter gains in employment will drive bankruptcies down further in early 2005.

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