Federal courts report bankruptcies continue to decline

Continuing a trend of recent years, bankruptcies nationwide declined for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2019, U.S. Courts reported. Overall personal bankruptcies declined slightly, though business filings increased for just the third time this decade. Indiana’s Southern District bankruptcy numbers, however, told a different tale.

In data published Friday, U.S. courts reported:

• The 750,878 personal bankruptcies filed in the last fiscal year was 0.3 percent below the number of new filings in the prior fiscal year. The trend continues annual declines after a peak during the Great Recession of more than 1.6 million personal bankruptcy filings in 2010. However, the pace of decline in the most recent fiscal year was the slowest since 2011, according to the courts.
• The 22,483 business bankruptcies in the data reported Friday was a 1.1 percent increase compared with the prior fiscal year. The increase reverses a prior two-year decline in new business bankruptcy filings.
• In the Southern District of Indiana, there were 14,173 total bankruptcies, of which 207 were business bankruptcies. The district bucked the nationwide trend: total personal bankruptcies increased 1.2 percent, and business insolvency petitions were up 0.5 percent.
• In the Northern District of Indiana, the 8,804 personal bankruptcy filings were an annual decline of 2.3 percent, and business bankruptcy filings were down 1.3 percent.