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There were 2,477 bankruptcy filings in Washington state last month, up 32 percent from the previous November.
But there are signs that the pace of new bankruptcies is slowing, as job losses level off. November marked the third consecutive month that the year-over-year growth in filings was under 35 percent. From January to August this year, year-over-year growth ranged from 42 to 67 percent.
Nationally, Washington ranked 23rd in per-capita filings, the same as in October, according to AACER, a bankruptcy data and management firm. The state ranked 11th in year-over-year increase in per-capita filings.
So far this year, there have been 28,849 bankruptcies in Washington state, a 45 percent increase over the same period in 2008. The increase is partly the result of filings returning to historical levels. Before 2006, when a stricter federal bankruptcy law took effect, filings in Washington state were averaging about 37,000 annually.
As usual, the most populous counties led the state in bankruptcy filings: There were 631 in King County, up 53 percent; 306 in Snohomish County, up 45 percent; and 337 in Pierce County, up 37 percent.
Business filings, although a fraction of total bankruptcy filings, are at levels in Western Washington not seen since the mid-1990s. In the first 11 months of this year, 829 businesses declared bankruptcy, compared with 468 over the same period in 2008. This year will mark the highest number of business filings in Western Washington since 1997, when there were 866.
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