Income Trajectories Debts and Expenses of Some Chapter 7 Debtors 1996-1998

Journal Issue

Oct 1999

Column Name

Journal HTML Content

Here we take another step in our effort to characterize the circumstances of recent chapter 7

no-asset debtors, based on information taken from a systematic sampling of cases across the

country.<small><sup><a href="#1" name="1a">1</a></sup></small> The database from which we draw in this article contains 1,452 cases filed for the

most part in late 1998 or early 1999. We focus on income trends and the relationships

between them and the debtors' levels of unsecured debt and claimed expenses.

</p><p>The decision to file bankruptcy may be influenced by a debtor's financial <i>trajectory</i> as well as

his or her immediate financial condition. A debtor's response to his or her immediate

circumstances may be importantly affected by the path by which the debtor arrived there. A

debtor "on the way down" may react differently to one in objectively identical circumstances

who is nevertheless "on the way up." The subjective burden felt by the first debtor may well be

greater than the burden felt by the second. Everything else being equal, the first debtor might be

more inclined to seek the relief, notwithstanding the attendant stigma and other disadvantages,

provided by bankruptcy.

</p><p>Income trajectories can have objective as well as subjective consequences for debtors. Debtors

with declining incomes may carry debt and expense levels based on their previous, higher

incomes. The debt-to-income ratios of debtors with identical incomes may be different

depending on their income trajectories.

</p><p>Studies based on petitions and schedules give no insight into the subjective side of the debtors'

worlds and decision schemes. But we can gain some understanding of the objective factors.

</p><h3>Data Analysis</h3>

<p>From the database of 1,452 cases, we used all that met the following conditions: consumer cases

filed 1998 in which the debtor had reported annual income for 1997 and 1996 on the Statement

of Financial Affairs. This resulted in a sample of 845 cases.<small><sup><a href="#2" name="2a">2</a></sup></small> We estimated 1998 incomes by

annualizing the monthly income figures, from all sources, provided on Schedule I.

</p><p>The next step identified two subgroups of cases that showed either strictly decreasing or strictly

increasing income trajectories from 1996 to 1998. In other words, to be a member of the

decreasing group, a debtor's 1998 income had to be less than the 1997 income, which in turn

had to be less than the 1996 income. There were 97 such "on the way down" cases (11.5

percent of the total). Going in the other direction, there were 235 "on the way up" cases (28

percent of the total). More generally, 353 of the 845 cases reported 1998 incomes less than

the average of their 1996 and 1997 incomes, while 492 cases reported 1998 incomes equal to

or greater than the earlier years' average. Table 1 and Figure 1 display median incomes over

three years for the entire group of 845 cases and the two subgroups.

</p><h3>Table 1: Median Gross Incomes<small><sup><a href="#3" name="3a">3</a></sup></small></h3>

<tbody><tr><th>Group/Year</th>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>All Cases (845)</td>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody></table></center>

<h3>Figure 1: Gross Income Trends, 1996-1998<br>

Median Income from All Sources</h3>

<p>Debtors were more likely to be on the way up than on the way down at the time of filing, but

many of those who were on the way down had fallen hard. The median 1996 income for debtors

going down was more than double the median 1996 income of debtors coming up, but their 1998

income was 21 percent less.

</p><p>The incomes should be viewed relative to their position in the general population. For example,

the highest income on the chart, $38,000, is less than the median income of a family of four in

more than 75 percent of the counties in which the debtors live. It is also less than the national

median incomes of families with three or more members.<small><sup><a href="#4" name="4a">4</a></sup></small> In other words, very few debtors

going down were "affluent" in 1996. There were five, however, who reported 1996 incomes

greater than $90,000.

</p><h3>Income Trajectory, Unsecured Debt and Expenses</h3>

<p>Table 2 shows the median levels of unsecured debt and expenses (annualized) reported on

Schedules F and J, respectively. Although the debtors on the way down report a higher median

unsecured debt than those on the way up ($24,540 vs. $22,088), the difference is not

statistically significant. A more informative way to look at this information is presented in the

next section. The difference between Schedule J expenses for the two groups (going down =

$22,260/year; coming up = $23,040/year) is statistically significant. We return to this

difference in the conclusion of the article.

</p><h3>Table 2: Median Values of Unsecured Debt and Expenses</h3>

<tbody><tr><th>Group/Variable</th>

<th>Unsecured Debt</th>

<th>Annual Expenses</th>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>All Cases (845)</td>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody></table></center>

<h3>Debt-to-Income Ratio</h3>

<p>The ratio of debt to income provides a useful window into the debtor's financial world.<small><sup><a href="#5" name="5a">5</a></sup></small> We used

the ratio of unsecured debt to 1998 income to test the conjecture that debtors on the way down

bring more debt into bankruptcy than do debtors on the way up. In the last section we noted that

the difference between the unsecured debt medians of the two groups, while in the direction

supporting the conjecture, was not statistically significant. Tables 3 and 4 clarify the

relationship by using unsecured debt-to-income ratios.

</p><h3>Table 3: Unsecured Debt to 1998 Gross Income (Median Ratios)</h3>

<tbody><tr><th>Group</th>

<th>Ratio</th>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>All Cases (845)</td>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody></table></center>

<h3>Table 4: Debt-Income Ratios for Matched Incomes in Two Groups</h3>

<tbody><tr><th colspan="6">Income Level</th></tr>

<tr><th>Group</th>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody></table></center>

<p>The group of 97 debtors on the way down had a significantly higher median debt-to-income ratio

than the 235 debtors on the way up. This relationship is shown even more clearly in Table 4,

where debtors from the two groups are matched in terms of 1998 income.

</p><p>The debtors on the way down had higher debt-to-income ratios in every matched group except

the one between $10,000 and $19,999. Note also that the aberrant median ratio in the

less-than-$10,000 group going down arose from 12 debtors (half of the group) who reported

1998 incomes of zero or close to zero.

</p><h3>Conclusion</h3>

<p>The income trajectory of a consumer debtor is a meaningful measure of the debtor's financial

world. Whether on the way down or on the way up, consumer debtors in 1998 are

overwhelmingly on the lower rungs of the nation's income ladder. More than half of the debtors

reported current income greater than their average income over the past two years. This finding

does not support the conjecture that most debtors are on a downward income slide at the time of

filing. A debtor on the way down is likely to be carrying more unsecured debt relative to income

than another debtor, with the same income, who is on the way up. But the same is not true of the

expenses claimed by debtors on the way down. As we saw in Tables 1 and 2, the debtors going

down, with less income than the debtors coming up, also claim fewer expenses.

</p><hr>

<h3>Footnotes</h3>

<p><small><sup><a name="1">1</a></sup></small> The authors thank Joe Guzinski for his support. All opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Executive Office for United States Trustees. <a href="#1a">Return to article</a>

</p><p><small><sup><a name="2">2</a></sup></small> We used only those files where the debtor affirmatively entered a value, including $0, for past years' income. We did not assume that the absence of an entry was equivalent to a report of zero income. <a href="#2a">Return to article</a>

</p><p><small><sup><a name="3">3</a></sup></small> Income distributions in this research are highly skewed. We used the Mann-Whitney test to estimate the statistical significance of the difference between the medians of the two sub-groups. For each year, these differences are significantly different with a probability of less than .001. <a href="#3a">Return to article</a>

</p><p><small><sup><a name="4">4</a></sup></small> Here we will not consider the important questions of family size and differences between national and county-wide income standards. <i>See</i> "Measuring Means-testing: It's All in the Words," <i>ABI Journal,</i> September 1998, p. 1, and "Bankruptcy Reform: Finding the Best Gross Income Test," <i>ABI Journal,</i> July/August 1999, p. 18. <a href="#4a">Return to article</a>

</p><p><small><sup><a name="5">5</a></sup></small> For example, Sullivan, Warren and Westbrook used various forms of debt-to-income ratios as a fundamental measure of consumers' financial conditions in their treatise <i>As We Forgive Our Debtors</i> (1989). <a href="#5a">Return to article</a>

Journal Authors

Edward M. Flynn

Gordon Bermant

Journal Date

Friday, October 1, 1999 - 12:00