As COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions slowly begin to lift, we are still waiting to see what the local economic fallout will be from the Coronavirus Pandemic. One notable indicator of local economic status is the number of personal bankruptcy filings.
According to the Northern Ohio Bankruptcy Court’s website, there have been only 855 local bankruptcy filings in the metro Toledo, Ohio area as of April 30, 2021. 790 of said filings were Chapter 7 bankruptcies, 60 were filings under Chapter 13, and the remaining 5 were filed under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.
To put these numbers into some perspective, we can look at the number of personal bankruptcy filings in 2019, pre-Coronavirus Pandemic. Through the same four month period in 2019, the number of personal bankruptcies filed in the Toledo Court was 1,397. This sharp comparison to 2019 represents a 39% reduction in local personal bankruptcy filings, despite the Coronavirus Pandemic.
There are many theories as to why more local personal bankruptcies are not being filed, ranging from pandemic unemployment relief to a general fear of choosing when to file for bankruptcy relief. Nevertheless, the number of local personal bankruptcy filings will be one indicator that many of us will closely monitor in the coming months.
