Personal bankruptcy filings totaled 39,286 in August 2023, an 18% Y-oY increase.
Total bankruptcy filings were 41,614 in August 2023, also an 18% Y-o-Y increase.
How can this be the case?
The travel and leisure industry is booming.
Sales of expensive cars like Teslas are up 20%.
High-end fashion stores report strong sales (as long as, like Lululemon, they don’t have stores that can be robbed.
The windmill and solar industries are booming.
Chip-factories and highways are being built at such a rapid pace they offset the decline in manufacturing construction in the rest of the sector.
The answer seems simple:
The economy that services the rich, and the sectors of the economy into which the government is forcibly plowing money, are both doing well. Sometimes, on paper that makes the economy look strong. Sometimes, like when looking at bankruptcy numbers the ugly truth is revealed.
Consumer bankruptcies steadily increased during August in another sign that financial distress is increasing for many people.
Americans filed more than 39,000 bankruptcy cases last month, an 18% increase from the same point last year, according to new data from Epiq Bankruptcy, a bankruptcy data-analytics firm.
Americans amassed a collective $1 trillion in credit-card debt by the second quarter of the year.
While credit-card debts are climbing, more people are struggling to stay current.
There were more than 41,600 new bankruptcy cases filed last month, including businesses filing for bankruptcy in order to manage their debts. That’s also up approximately 18% from last August, Epiq’s data showed.
It’s the 13th straight month when the number of bankruptcies recorded a year-over-year rise. . . .
Early-stage credit-card delinquencies hit their highest rate since early 2012, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. Car-loan delinquencies reached their highest point in five years, the New York Fed said. They are delinquencies where the borrower is behind on their credit-card bill by at least 30 days.