The statistics for 2022 were released earlier this year, and they show that bankruptcy filings continue to rise. It was a slight increase of just 2%, but that still represents around 10,000 cases. For the 12-month period from March 31st of 2021 to March 31 of 2022, there were 403,273 new bankruptcy cases. The year prior, there had been 395,373 cases.
One thing that is interesting is that business filings went up by just under 10%. There are far more non-business bankruptcy filings every year, but this dramatic rise shows that businesses were being hit harder than individual consumers during this time period.
How big is the gap?
The gap between business filings and non-business filings is quite large. For instance, there were 388,806 non-business filings in 2022 (with the fiscal year ending in 2023). There were only 14,467 business filings.
If you look at data from a few years prior, there used to be far more business bankruptcy filings. For instance, there were 22,157 of them back in 2019. But the reality is that there were also far more overall filings. In 2019, there were 750,489 non-business filings.
In other words, there was a sharp decline in bankruptcy filings between 2019 and 2022, but the filings this year are showing that they’re starting to increase again. This is going to be an interesting trend to watch since total bankruptcies have been nearly cut in half during these times. Is this trend indicative of the fact that statistics may climb back to their 2019 levels? Or is it just a minor upward trend before the rates continue to go down?
Only time will tell, but you can see why it’s so important to keep an eye on bankruptcy in the United States. All business owners and consumers need to know exactly what legal options they have.