The North Carolina Bankruptcy Information Blog

In the years since the end of America’s recent Great Recession, there have been plenty of ups and downs in economic forecasts, fiscal prognostications, and financial facts and figures. But as mortgages rates rose forcing many into foreclosure, the personal health of those impacted went on the decline, as the real estate reckoning wrought a wave of depressed homeowners.

In fact, according to a new article by The Huffington Post, “The damaging mental-health effects of the fragile economy have been a subject of study since the throes of the Great Recession, and with the economy now settling into a state of near-inertia, those same health consequences appear likely to continue to afflict Americans who view their financial position as precarious.…

Following the worst financial downturn since the Depression of the 1930s, men and women of the middle-class have found themselves profoundly affected by an economic meltdown that’s quickly pushed many into poverty. Widening unemployment paired with shrinking government safety nets means one unexpected and unfortunate incident—a sudden layoff, debilitating injury or illness, a missed mortgage payment—can mean a person’s life is instantly transformed from “happy-go-lucky” to the brink of homelessness or worse.

In fact, according to a new article on the state of the shrinking middle class in America, “As foreclosure and unemployment rates have swelled to epidemic proportions in the past two years, the ranks of the American homeless have grown: the number of homeless families rose 4 percent in 2009, and then 9 percent last year, a pair of new reports show.…

While some experts are calling the latter portions of 2010 a new era of economic recovery, bankruptcy filings remain in true recession-era form.  In fact, according to the 2010 Fiscal Year statistics from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the number of bankruptcies filed between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010 increased from 1,402,816 to 1,596,355, marking an increase of 13.8%. And even though Chapter 11 (business and large individual) filings decreased, from 14,745 to 14,191, a 3.8% drop, and business filings overall also went down, from 58,721 last year to 58,322 this year, a 0.7% decrease, non-business or personal filings went up under all other chapters of the Bankruptcy Code, rising from 1,344,095 to 1,538,033, or 14.4%.…

If you’re reading this, odds are you might be suffering through a pretty tough financial time. What may make you feel a bit better about your current economic situation is the firm knowledge that you’re not alone in this global economic meltdown. Specifically, millions of average Americans just like you are facing a shared financial burden as we all struggle to stay afloat in the wake of this country’s recent Great Recession—full of folks facing insurmountable health care costs, foreclosure, job insecurity and losses, and, in some cases, complete and total insolvency.

In this ongoing series, Our Great Recession 2.0, we’ll delve into some of the more unique stories of this decade’s unprecedented economic downturn, sharing the familiar faces and dire places people are going in order to handle our collective financial meltdown head-on.…

If you’re reading this, odds are you may be suffering through  a tough financial time. Yet, what might make you feel a bit better about your current ordeal is the knowledge that you’re not alone. Millions of average Americans just like you are facing a shared financial circumstance as they struggle to stay afloat in the wake of this decade’s Great Recession—facing foreclosure, job insecurity, and, in some cases, insolvency.

In the series, Our Great Recession 2.0, we’ll delve into some of the more unique stories of this decade’s unprecedented economic downturn, allowing you to see familiar faces and dire places people are going in order to handle our collective financial meltdown head-on.…

In this special series, entitled “Bad Ideas for the Bankruptcy Bound,” we’ll introduce what to avoid when bankruptcy is your next, best step.

Love may move mountains,
but money can crumble the strongest marriage.
– Ron, Lieber, The New York Times

Everyone who’s married knows: money can be a primary cause of marital strife. As a result, in this especially difficult economic climate—full of job insecurity, rising mortgage costs, health care uncertainties and other mounting money woes—many debtors who have accumulated all kinds of debt without the knowledge of their spouse are sometimes tempted to file for bankruptcy “secretly” and avoid sharing the financial “bad news” with their spouse.…