Bankruptcies Up 21% in ’91

A record 944,000 American individuals and businesses filed for bankruptcy in 1991--a 21% increase from the year before--as the economy struggled to emerge from recession, a nonprofit group said Monday.

It was the highest number since the current U.S. Bankruptcy Code took effect in 1979 and the seventh consecutive increase nationally, said the American Bankruptcy Institute, whose members include lawyers, accountants and others in the bankruptcy industry.

Ninety-two percent of the filings were from individuals, the rest from businesses.

Many of the biggest increases came in economically shellshocked New England. Filings rose 51% in New Hampshire and 47% in Rhode Island. But the greatest number of filings occurred in California, 139,372, up 28% from 1990; the fewest in Vermont, 955. Alaska was the only state with a decline, down 8% to 1,064.