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What Kind of Relief? Consumer Bankruptcy and Private Administration in the Neoliberal American Welfare State

ABSTRACT This article examines the administrative structure of Chapter 7 bankruptcy to better understand the neoliberal welfare state. Studying the administrative workings of the bankruptcy system offers a clear example of the consequences that follow from delegating governance of state social programs to non-state—in this case private, profitseeking—actors. In consumer bankruptcy, considerable authority is delegated to private trustees and private attorneys incentivized to work in their own interests and those of creditors, rather than prioritizing the possibility of a “fresh start” allegedly offered by the bankruptcy system. Drawing on interviews and an original survey of the front-line workers of the bankruptcy system, I argue that consumer bankruptcy’s structure aligns with creditors rather than debtors, exposes debtors to asset extraction by profit-oriented administrators, and relies on private attorneys in ways that both limit access and often hurt low-income debtors.