The severe press of unemployment is forcing more and more Americans into bankruptcy. In the past nine months, there were 1,046,449 personal bankruptcies. This compares with 773,810 in the same period last year.
The National Bankruptcy Research Center reported that, in the month of September alone, we had 124,790 personal bankruptcies, up 41% from a year ago.
By the end of this year, the American Bankruptcy Institute estimates that personal bankruptcies will reach 1.4 million. This is higher than the 1.35 million reported in 2005. You are probably wondering why the 2005 number was so high. In that year, bankruptcy laws were tightened and it became more difficult to throw off all of your liabilities. As a consequence there was a rush to file before the changes became effective.
The situation is becoming dire because many unemployed persons are exhausting their benefits. This month alone, 400,000 persons exhausted their benefits, and by years' end 1.4 million will have exhausted their benefits.
Recent figures show that we now have an army of 5.4 million persons out of work for six months or more.
With the Federal Reserve having pledged or spent $11.2 trillion dollars bailing out the bankers, it time now -- not next week -- to develop programs that will put Americans back to work.
What is so mind boggling is how the Fed and the government are so unfazed by this urgent problem.
Do you believe that we need programs for putting Americans back to work?
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