Personal bankruptcies in Minnesota have been climbing since 2006. In addition to ever- present bankruptcy catalysts - medical bills, divorce and overspending - bankruptcy attorneys say job and housing woes prompted many to file. Here are the numbers from the story I wrote for Tuesday's front page:
But according to numbers out today from the American Bankruptcy Institute, January's numbers are encouraging. The number of consumers who filed bankruptcy in January was 22 percent lower than in December:
Attorneys say that January tends to be a slow month for bankruptcies. December is usually a slow month too.
Preliminary figures from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court - District of Minnesota show that 1,517 people filed for bankruptcy last month, and 1,598 filed in December. That's a few cases lower than the 1,533 who filed in January 2009, but not enough to say that this year is shaping up to break the bankruptcy streak. If you want more data, the court has monthly data on its website going back a decade.
Despite the improvement, the Institute is still predicting bankruptcies will rise to nearly 1.6 million this year.
