One in 50 Georgia households declared bankruptcy in 2009 between January and November, leaving the state with the third-highest personal bankruptcy rate in the nation.
Georgia’s crowded federal bankruptcy courts handled 66,925 filings during the first 11 months of the year, a 22 percent increase over the same period in 2008, according to statistics compiled by the National Bankruptcy Research Center.
... Howard Rothbloom, a high-profile bankruptcy attorney, said that, unlike in the past, he’s regularly seeing clients who owe more on their homes and cars than they are worth as well as clients who can no longer afford second homes and investment properties.
He said clients have more debt than ever before, including significant student loan debt and credit cards with escalating interest rates. He said he’s seeing more men than women who have lost jobs and major income reductions for those who remain employed.
“All in all, there is just a lot of financial misery in the world today,” he said.
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