At Behm Law Group, Ltd., we work with clients experiencing a broad range of financial and personal circumstances. Our attorneys offer legal protection and services for those working through Chapter 7, 12, and 13 bankruptcies. Clients whom we’ve helped regain stable finances with long-term debt relief in Marshall, MN and local communities have a variety of demographics including age, income, debt load and type, race, economic standing, marital status, number of dependents, and much more. What we’ve learned in our twenty-six years of providing comprehensive services to our clients is that there is no single aspect of a filer’s life that causes the filing of a bankruptcy case. If you are among those struggling to make debt payments on time, you can join filers who have regained long-term debt relief and a balance of their finances through filing for bankruptcy relief.
We work primarily with individual consumer cases for Chapter 7 liquidation and Chapter 13 reorganization bankruptcies. We also work with family farmers and fishers who file Chapter 12 reorganization and businesses working through a Chapter 7 liquidation case.
While there’s a lot of variety in the reasons why people file bankruptcy for permanent debt relief, some statistics reveal trends in exactly who filers are in regard to some important demographics. The American Bankruptcy Institute provides very detailed statistics for time frames and regions in the U.S., but we can look at some broader information for our nation.
Statistics based on 2019-2020.
Top causes of bankruptcy:
- Job loss makes it 2.5 times more likely for a household to file
- Medical bills were cited as the reason for bankruptcy in 29% of survey participants that filed in a recent study, and 57% reported they had troubles with medical debt
- Possibly due to the coronavirus pandemic, illness and related job loss has skyrocketed to the top-cited causes of bankruptcy
- Divorce is a major life change that often results in bankruptcy for one or both spouses
Marital status:
- 64% of filers are married
- 15% are divorced
- 17% are single
- 3% are widowed
Age:
- The median age of filers in the U.S. is 38 to 45
- Senior citizen filer rates are increasing
- Under-25-year-old filer rates are decreasing
Household Income:
- Around 60% of filers have an income of $30,000 and below
- Rates of filers with an income of over $60,000 have been increasing since 2007
Education:
- About 20% of filers have a Bachelor’s degree or higher
- 36% have a high school education
- 29% have a high school diploma with some college education
- These factors may change if laws are passed to allow the inclusion of student loan debt in a bankruptcy case
Some possible changes in the coming years to the bankruptcy code might show some alterations to bankruptcy statistics, but for now these numbers show who mostly files for bankruptcy relief in the U.S. today.
To learn more about bankruptcy and debt relief in Marshall, MN, contact Behm Law Group, Ltd. today at (507) 387-7200 or stephen@mankatobankruptcy.com.
