New York, April 25: Notwithstanding the slow economic recovery, the number of bankruptcy petitions in the US last year soared to 1.4 million, which is a jump of 35 per cent compared to 2008.
Moreover, the count of such petitions last year is also the highest since 2005, according to data from the US Federal Courts.
The staggering figure of 1.4 million indicates that both businesses and consumers struggled to tide over the financial turmoil, one of the worst since the Great Depression of 1930s.
“In 2009, a total of 1,402,816 bankruptcy petitions were filed in the federal courts, an increase of 35 per cent from the 1,042,806 filed in 2008.
“The year 2009 marks the greatest number of bankruptcy filings since 2005…,” the Administrative Office of the US Courts said in its recent newsletter.
–PTI