NBKRC Quarterly Bankruptcy Filings Report (March 2013)
|
Filings for March 2013 were up sharply from February (to 105,000 this
month from 77,000 last month); the total for March was the first time since
last August that filings exceeded 100,000, and the highest in any month since
last May. But taken in context the news is actually reassuring. Filings in
March typically are the highest of the year, so the increase from February
is to be expected. What is far more salient is that the filings this March
were down 16% from last March, and were the lowest for any March since
2008, before the beginning of the Great Recession. The sense of decline is
buttressed by quarterly figures: filings during the first quarter of 2013 are
down 15% from the first quarter of 2012.
Total filings this year are at a rate of about 1100 per million adults (one for
every 900 adults). Against that norm, five States stand out with remarkably
high rates, more than 50% above the national average. Tennessee remains
1
by far the highest (at 2150, almost twice the national average); it is followed,
in order, by Georgia, Alabama, Utah, and Illinois (with 1980, 1830, 1810,
and 1760 filings per million adults, respectively). Interestingly, as the high
filings rates of the recession recedes, the pattern of high rates is spreading
out of the Southeast and Pacific Southwest where it has been concentrated
for much of the last two years. Nevada, for example, which had by far the
highest rates in the country for most of 2011 and 2012 is now nowhere near
the top of the list.
One interesting way to see the same point is to examine the filing rates
in the Nation’s largest urban centers. The table below displays the filing
rates (per million adults) in the first quarter of 2013 for the Nation’s twelve
largest counties – those with more than 1.5 million adults. Within that
group, Chicago stands out with by far the highest filing rate, substantially
more than twice the national average. Miami comes next, at almost twice the
national average. It is followed in turn by the four large counties of southern
California, led by Riverside County (on the east side of Los Angeles) but all
substantially above than the national average. At the bottom of the table,
by contrast, are the two largest counties in New York City and in Texas.
Brooklyn has the lowest rate of all (only 382 filings per million adults this
quarter), but all four are markedly below the national average. Phoenix and
Seattle fall in the middle of the table, with filings at about the national norm.
COUNTY | January 2013 Filings (Per Million Adults) |
Cook (Chicago, Illinois) | 2358 |
Miami-Dade (Florida) | 1951 |
Riverside (L.A., California) | 1951 |
Los Angeles (California) | 1374 |
San Diego (California) | 1304 |
Orange (L.A., California) | 1248 |
Maricopa (Phoenix, Arizona) | 1193 |
King (Seattle, Washington) | 1012 |
Dallas (Texas) | 777 |
Queens (New York) | 517 |
Harris (Houston, Texas) | 477 |
Kings (Brooklyn, New York) | 382 |
This analysis was performed on data collected by the National Bankruptcy Research Center (NBKRC) by NBKRC contributor Professor Ronald Mann of the Columbia Law School.
|