Open Bankruptcy Project

Joint vs Individual Bankruptcy Filing Patterns

Name: Joint vs Individual Bankruptcy Filing Patterns Dataset v0.1
Creator: Open Bankruptcy Project
Published: 2026-04-27
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Empirical analysis of joint (couples filing together) vs. individual bankruptcy filings over 35 years. Three significant findings: a sustained decline in joint-filing rate, a substantial outcome advantage for joint Ch.13 filers, and divergent recession-effect patterns that reinforce the stimulus-blocked-bankruptcy thesis.

Three headline findings

~65% relative decline

Chapter 7 joint-filing rate fell from 26.9% (1995) to 9.0% (2025). Chapter 13 fell from 28.5% to 13.9%. Tracks broader marriage-rate decline + post-divorce financial distress + single-household economics shift.

+20.7 pp

Chapter 13 discharge-rate advantage for joint filers. Joint Ch.13: 57.6% complete the plan and discharge. Individual Ch.13: 36.9%. Dual-income stability funds 3-5 year plans more reliably.

2009 vs 2020

Great Recession produced a joint-filing spike (Ch.7 joint rate jumped to 22.2% in 2009, up from 16.0% in 2007). COVID 2020 saw NO equivalent spike (11.7%) — consistent with stimulus + moratoriums preventing the cascading household financial distress that drives joint filing.

The 35-year decline in joint filing

Year	Ch. 7 joint %	Ch. 13 joint %	Ch. 11 joint %
1995	26.9%	28.5%	—
2000	22.0%	19.2%	—
2005	16.2%	15.0%	2.9%
2009	22.2%	29.0%	6.5%
2014	16.7%	20.7%	8.9%
2019	12.0%	16.8%	0.0%
2020	11.7%	19.2%	1.0%
2024	7.8%	17.2%	0.7%
2025	9.0%	13.9%	0.1%

The decline is striking and sustained. Possible drivers:

Falling marriage rates — the U.S. marriage rate has declined from ~9 per 1,000 (1995) to ~6 per 1,000 (2024). Fewer married couples means fewer joint filings, mechanically.
Post-divorce filings — bankruptcy is heavily concentrated among divorced individuals; the data may show the rising share of divorce-precipitated single filings.
Cohabitation without marriage — couples living together without legal marriage cannot file jointly under § 302; they file individually if they file at all.
Income instability shifts — the "1.5-earner household" pattern means financial distress hits one earner more often than both simultaneously.

The Chapter 13 outcome advantage

The 20.7 percentage point gap between joint and individual Chapter 13 discharge rates is one of the largest empirical disparities in the dataset:

Cohort	Discharged	Dismissed	Total
Joint Ch. 13 filers	57.6%	26.6%	19,501
Individual Ch. 13 filers	36.9%	39.7%	78,613
Joint Ch. 7 filers	95.9%	1.1%	18,284
Individual Ch. 7 filers	83.7%	2.1%	83,821

Why the Ch.13 gap is so large

Several interrelated factors:

Income redundancy. Two earners means one job loss doesn't automatically default the plan. The plan typically continues even if one spouse experiences income disruption.
Expense efficiency. Joint households absorb fixed costs (housing, utilities, transportation) more efficiently per person, leaving more disposable income for plan payments.
Plan-payment reliability. The trustee's primary failure-mode trigger is missed plan payments. Joint households have more buffer against the income volatility that drives missed payments.
Lifecycle stability. Married joint filers tend to be older, more established, and more stable than the individual-filer population.

The Ch.7 gap (12.2 percentage points) is smaller because Ch.7 doesn't depend on sustained income to complete — the discharge issues at ~104 days regardless of income stability.

The Great Recession vs. COVID divergence

Joint-filing rate moves with macroeconomic stress in measurable ways:

2007: Ch.7 joint rate at 16.0% (pre-recession baseline)
2009: Ch.7 joint rate at 22.2% (Great Recession peak; +6.2 pp surge)
2011: Ch.7 joint rate at 22.1% (sustained at recession-elevated level)
2019: Ch.7 joint rate at 12.0% (pre-pandemic, declining trend resumed)
2020: Ch.7 joint rate at 11.7% (NO spike during COVID economic shock)
2022: Ch.7 joint rate at 9.5% (continued decline)

The Great Recession produced a clear joint-filing spike (+6.2 pp from 2007 to 2009): household financial distress hit dual-income couples simultaneously when the housing/credit crash spread across labor markets.

COVID produced no equivalent spike. Direct stimulus payments, moratoriums, and forbearance programs prevented the cascading household-level distress that would have shown up as a joint-filing surge. This is empirically consistent with the overall filing-volume decline during 2020-2022 — another signature of stimulus-blocked-bankruptcy.

What the duration data show

Despite outcome differences, joint and individual filers complete their cases at essentially the same speed:

Chapter	Cohort	p25 days	median	p75	n
Ch. 7	joint	99	107	134	17,534
Ch. 7	individual	98	104	125	70,149
Ch. 13	joint	1,292	1,737	1,891	11,229
Ch. 13	individual	1,280	1,722	1,890	28,972

The duration similarity (joint vs individual within ~15 days median for both chapters) debunks the "joint cases take longer" intuition. Both chapters' procedural timelines drive the duration; joint vs. individual is not a meaningful predictor.

Methodology

The joint_flag classification

The bankruptcy court's case-record schema includes a joint_flag field that's set to 1 when both spouses file together under § 302 (joint case) and 0 otherwise. The classification is based on the petition's structural form and is reliable.

Chapter 11 has very low joint-filing rates throughout because Chapter 11 is predominantly used by businesses (which can't file jointly) rather than by married consumers.

Open dataset

joint_filing_by_year_chapter.csv — year-by-chapter time series
joint_filing_by_district_chapter.csv — per-district patterns
joint_filing_outcomes.csv — outcome differential by cohort

Citation

Open Bankruptcy Project (2026). Joint vs Individual Bankruptcy Filing Patterns Dataset, v0.1.
501(c)(3) public charity (EIN 41-5159631).
URL: https://viz.openbankruptcyproject.org/joint-filing/
License: CC BY 4.0