The typical person filing bankruptcy
has historically been the low-income, under-educated people of our
society. But with the downturn in the economy, there are more and
more people with college degrees that have ended up filing
bankruptcy. Even some upper income folks have turned elected to seek
bankruptcy protection when their investments went South.
While 70% of bankruptcies are still
comprised of people that did not graduate from college, graduates
filing under BAPCPA have increased by 20% according to a study of
more than 50,000 people covering 2006 to 2010. There has also been
an increase in unemployed persons filing by 21% since 2006.
There was a 12% increase in married
people filing since 2006, with married people making up more than 60%
of all filings; however, only 35% of those petitions were joint
petitions. A majority of the people filing experienced a decrease in
income, or lost their jobs, while they had credit cards overextended.
Bankruptcy filing peaked in 2010, when approximately 1.5 million
people filed.
Of the people filing, when broken up
into groups, there was an increase in all groups, with the exception
of African-Americas, where the filing dropped to 11.3% from 15.4%.
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