The snapshot of Cumberland County, North Carolina that illustrated how bankruptcy filings are rising across the country gave us another piece of presumably representative data--data that matches what consumer bankruptcy attorneys have been saying for years. While the credit industry did a good job of convincing Congress that bankruptcy was a sort of financial planning for deadbeats, allowing the irresponsible to live in luxury at our expense, consumer bankruptcy attorneys have long maintained that the majority of their clients arrive in their offices as the result of some life-altering event like divorce, job loss, or major medical expenses.
Data provided to The Fayettville Observer by Consumer Credit Counseling Service indicates that in Cumberland County, the reasons for post-law-change filings broke down like this:
- 28 percent: Medical Bills
- 24 percent: Job Loss/Work Reduction
- 16 percent: Divorce/Separation
- 8 percent: Death of Spouse
That's 76 percent of filers. The remaining 24 percent were divided among legal expenses, the need to avoid foreclosure (although many of those cases may have been triggered by an event like those listed above), and financial mismanagement, which accounted for only 12 percent of filings.
These numbers are highly reflective of the statistics consumer bankruptcy attorneys have been suggesting for years.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Bankruptcy News and Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.