Bankruptcies Soar 28% in First 3 Quarters of 2016

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 2:41AM EST · Published Oct 7, 9:00AM EDT

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Bankruptcies Soar 28% in First 3 Quarters of 2016 — © Thinkstock

It may not be a sign of an economy that may grow less in any year since the end of the Great Recession, but a bad business climate is likely one reason commercial bankruptcy filings are higher by 28% through the first nine months of the year to 28,789.

The data were posted by the American Bankruptcy Association, based on data from Epiq Systems.

Last month, the problem accelerated:

Total commercial filings for September 2016 were 3,072, representing a 38 percent increase from the 2,219 filings during the same period in 2015.

The distribution varies widely from state to state:

The average nationwide per capita bankruptcy filing rate for the first nine calendar months of 2016 (Jan. 1-Sept. 30) decreased slightly to 2.54 (total filings per 1,000 population) from the 2.55 rate for the first eight months of the year. The average daily filing total in September 2016 was 2,153, a 4 percent decrease from the 2,239 total daily filings registered in September 2015. States with the highest per capita filing rates (total filings per 1,000 population) through the first nine months of 2016 were:

Tennessee (5.67)

Alabama (5.52)

Georgia (4.75)

Illinois (4.19)

Utah (4.17)

Unfortunately, there is no explanation in the data for what happened in Tennessee.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.