Fear of bankruptcy holds too many people back

The mystery isn’t why so many people file for bankruptcy each year. It’s why more people don’t.

Each year, only a fraction of the Americans who could benefit financially from bankruptcy actually seek relief. Economists say some don’t file because collectors aren’t aggressively pursuing them, while others may strategically delay filing because bankruptcy could benefit them more down the road.

Many bankruptcy attorneys have a much simpler explanation: Fear, a lack of information and misplaced optimism keep people from getting a fresh start.

A temporary pause

About 14% of U.S. households — or roughly 17 million — owe more than they own, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates. Many of these households could benefit from having their debts wiped out, but fewer than 1% of U.S. households actually file for bankruptcy each year. Last year, there were 752,160 personal bankruptcy filings. Researchers refer to this gap as “missing bankruptcies” — the filings that could be happening, but aren’t.

Now, there’s an additional set of missing bankruptcies: the cases people normally would have filed in recent months, but haven’t. Bankruptcy filings dropped dramatically in the second quarter of this year, to about 60% of the average for the previous five years.

Courthouses were shuttered by pandemic closures, which made it harder for creditors to pursue foreclosures and wage garnishments. Those are two big drivers of consumer bankruptcy filings, says David Cox, a bankruptcy attorney in Lynchburg, Virginia, and co-author of “Consumer Bankruptcy: Fundamentals of Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.”

Borrowers have benefited from various forms of coronavirus relief, such as suspended payments on federal student loans, mortgage forbearance and expanded hardship options for loans and credit card accounts. The $600 weekly bump in unemployment checks, which expired in July, also kept many people afloat, Cox says.

Lower jobless benefits, along with the reopening of courts and continued high unemployment, mean the lull in bankruptcy filings is likely temporary, says Jenny Doling, a bankruptcy attorney in Palm Desert, California, who serves on the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Chapter 13 Advisory Committee.