Abstract
Over the past quarter century, our knowledge of individuals who seek relief through the consumer bankruptcy system has been derived largely from the information that has been collected and analyzed by the Consumer Bankruptcy Project. The most recent iteration of the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, the 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project (the "2007 CBP"), extends well beyond prior iterations by drawing a nationwide random sample of bankruptcy filings. The first report published in connection with the 2007 CBP (the "First Report" or "Report"), entitled Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study of Consumer Debtors, seeks to evaluate the success of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 ("BAPCPA") in sorting debtors according to their ability to repay past debts from future income. Specifically, the First Report focuses on a comparison of the median income levels of pre-BAPCPA and post-BAPCPA debtors to discern how B APCP A's sorting mechanism - the means test - has functioned. This article argues that the First Report has possibly failed to answer the research question that it presented for three primary reasons.