We hear it every day. The economy is improving. Bankruptcies are not relevant any longer.
Hogwash.
The economy today is OK for people who have good jobs, and maybe better for those who are educated. But if you have lost your job because your company has downsized, the economy is HORRIBLE. Why? Well, it's because in this new, recovering economy, there are no new jobs being created that pay as well as those jobs that went away because of downsizing.
A good example is the person who worked in the pharmaceutical sales arena. Someone who was a rep for a pharmaceutical company found that many of these departments and companies have consolidated and have squeezed these jobs right out the back door. These former reps cannot go out and find a $70,000 - $80,000 job. They are lucky if they can find a $35,000 a year job. The economy is not working for the middle to lower income groups. It's just not happening. For many of these unemployed or displaced workers, the unemployment payments have run out. It's sink or swim, and many are sinking.
In the US, 90% of bankruptcies are filed because of job loss, medical bills or divorce. Let's take divorce. Here's a situation where you have two people working in a household with one household to support. Then, the time comes that they decide the marriage is over and they want to divorce. Immediately their situation pivots to two people working but now there are two households to support, not one. In today's economy, we have constructed a system here in America over the past 30-40 years that insists on two incomes to make it all work.
That's why the minute this one household shifts to two, all expenses double, and there are two different rents, two utility bills, two cable bills, and probably two car notes. The bottom line is there are just not enough bucks to go around, and they can't cut it.
This is the really sad thing. Now, as with most divorces, these people suffer the devastation of divorce, but now they have the devastation of debts. 
When someone comes to see me and they say, "I'm going through a divorce," my first response is, "Look, is there any chance of reconciliation? Your life is about to be miserable." I tell them to go back to counseling because they need to recognize that if they cannot reconcile their differences, there's a huge economic burden headed their way that will not be a simple fix.
The American public is living paycheck to paycheck. If one thing happens to disrupt the flow of income in a couple's life, they are done.
Bankruptcy In Georgia: The Truth
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