August 15, 2011 – The US Bankruptcy Court has now made statistics available for bankruptcy filings in 2010. Based on the report, bankruptcy filings increased by 8.1% when compared with 2009. 71% of filings were Chapter 7 bankruptcy and a majority of bankruptcies were caused by personal rather than business debt. 

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The statistics show that not all areas of the country were impacted equally by the recession. The western states that are covered by the 9^th Circuit federal courts saw the greatest increase in filings. In 2009, that circuit had 339,005 bankruptcy filings. In 2010, that number jumped by about 19% to 404,289 filings.

At the same time, courts covered by the 6^th US Circuit saw a drop in filings from 219,765 in 2009 to 214,336. That’s a drop of about 2.5%. It is also worth noting the 6^th Circuit is the only area of the country that had a decrease in filings.

Overall, the country has 1.59 million bankruptcy filings for the year. And while the fact that the number of bankruptcies continued to increase throughout 2010, the overall increase was the lowest number since 2006. 

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