At Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Hawaii business is booming, especially when it comes to providing the mandatory financial counseling that's required before someone can file for bankruptcy.That's been increasing and figures to rise even more this year, says Wendy Burkholder, head of the agency that provides advice and counseling on how to handle debt problems.
Bankruptcy filings in the U.S. averaged 3,541 each business day in September and are on track to reach 807,000 for the year, a 37 percent increase over the 590,500 filings in 2006.
At long last, the Administrative Office of the Courts yesterday released the fourth quarter and annual 2006 bankruptcy filing statistics; the headline on the Courts' press release reads, "Bankruptcy Filings Plunge in Calendar Year 2006". Of course, the numbers and what they might mean are old news to most of us: AACER information has been available for some time, and even related in an Associated Press story that gave us a solid indication of first quarter 2007 stats before the official sources gave us a peek at the end of 2006.
Bankruptcy filings have increased 58% in the first five months of 2007 compared to the same period last year, according to a research company that tracks federal bankruptcy data. And the states with the highest per-capita filings were all in the South or Midwest, the data shows.
The folks at Automated Access to Court Electronic Records or AACER provided Credit Slips with statistics on U.S. bankruptcy filings through July 21, 2007. Experts are watching these data because we want to know whether the steady rise in bankruptcy filings since enactment of the 2005 bankruptcy law will continue. Still, we have to be careful not to overinterpret these data.
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