Supreme Court records show that there were 64,637 filings for personal bankruptcy in 2016, an increase of 781 cases over 2015, thus marking the first increase in 13 years.
The number of personal bankruptcies peaked in 2003 at almost 250,000 nationwide. The reason for the subsequent decrease was greater scrutiny of consumer loan companies that resulted in revisions to the lending law, which went into effect in 2006. These revisions limited how much money a person could borrow from consumer loan companies.
Prior to the revision, a person could borrow as much as he wanted and the loan company could charge high interest rates. Borrowers often ended up taking out additional loans to pay off previous loans, thus engendering a vicious cycle of borrowing.
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