U.S. consumer bankruptcies, after rising 9 percent last month from June, might exceed 1.6 million this year, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
The 137,698 bankruptcy filings in July also represent a 9 percent increase from a year earlier, the institute said yesterday in a statement posted on its website, citing data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center.
Last year, there were 1.4 million consumer bankruptcy filings in the U.S., a 32 percent increase from 2008, the institute said in March. Total filings have been increasing since the implementation of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention Act of 2005, a change to the federal law that made it harder for individuals to seek protection from creditors, the institute said in March.
