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Child Support - Does It Need Some Changes?
By: Nay Nay Butler
The child support program was established in 1975. The child support program began as a partnership between the federal government and the states to lower the expenses of the Aid to Families and Dependent Children program (AFDC). The AFDC program provided cash payments and food stamps to needy families and children. AFDC was repealed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton and replaced with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The government believed that AFDC was discouraging women from seeking employment, and giving women a reason to have more children. TANF would now require all states to implement a Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program in order for recipients to be eligible for TANF funds. The Child Support Enforcement program requires custodial parents that receive cash payments from TANF, Medicaid, and in some cases food stamps, to agree to allow CSE to collect payments from the non-custodial parent. This process includes locating parents, paternity tests, child support orders, collecting and distributing child support payments. The federal government reimburses states for the expenses incurred to collect child support payments from non-custodial parents. In 2021, the federal and state expenditures were $5.9 billion dollars. All states are reimbursed 66% by the federal government for their expenditures. The federal government also has an incentive payment for the states to run effective programs for collecting child support. In 2021, that incentive payment was approximately $509 million. The Child Support Enforcement program collected 67% of their caseload in 2021, compared to collecting 23% of their caseload in 1998. As you can see, the CSE program has had a significant uptick in collecting child support payments from 1998 - 2021.
The Issues With Child Support Enforcement
I believe that child support enforcement is necessary to ensure that children residing with custodial parents are provided the money needed for them to lead productive lives. Unfortunately, sometimes children are caught in the middle of their parents' breakups and divorces. The majority of the time women are the custodial parent and men are the non-custodial parent. I have personally spoken with custodial parents and non-custodial parents and I am going to give a couple of scenarios regarding child support and the effect it has on both parents.
The Custodial parent - The custodial parent, which is usually the mother, feels that the fathers walk away from their financial responsibility and leave them to struggle to provide for the children. Meanwhile the absent father moves on with his life and in some cases starts a new family with a new woman. The absent father will sometimes spend more money on his new family and not provide the needed support for the children he already has. After much frustration of the custodial parent to receive financial support from the absent father, she resorts to seeking assistance from child support enforcement. The absent father is then forced to pay child support and becomes resentful and angry that the mother would take him to child support enforcement. The mothers that don’t want to deal with the child support enforcement program just settles for the scraps the absent father gives or sometimes settles for nothing at all. These mothers are sometimes forced into child enforcement programs because they apply for cash assistance, food stamps or Medicaid through TANF, which will force them to go after the absent father for child support. These mothers have to house, feed and clothe their children and are left with no choice when they don’t get cooperation from the absent father. These absent fathers may be bitter with the mother and their way of punishing her is to withhold support for his children. That kind of attitude does nothing but hurt the children who will likely end up in poverty because the single mom cannot afford to support her children. The Department of Justice states that 33.7% of single mothers live below the poverty level and 1 in 7 children under the age of 18 live in poverty. These statistics clearly indicate that child support from non-custodial parents is needed.
Non-Custodial Parent - This is usually a man who finds himself separated from his children due to divorce/break up. The father will now have to find housing for himself which adds rent/mortgage, utilities and other expenses to support himself in addition to paying a child support payment. There are some states that withhold 40-60% of a father’s income for child support payments. It is very difficult for a father on child support to afford to provide his own basic needs when he is forced to pay the amounts some courts inflict upon them. Some people will say get a second job or a better job. In this economy, that is not easy to do either depending on what state you live in. Jobs are not plentiful in every state, and the southern states tend to pay much lower wages which is an additional problem. These issues will leave the father feeling angry at the mother and the system. They may feel that there is no way they will ever be able to support themselves and move on with their lives. If they should lose a job, the child support keeps accruing throughout their job search so when they do go back to work they now have child support arrears. They are deeper in the hole. The longer they don’t make their child support payments they risk their drivers license being suspended and being prosecuted and sent to jail. When they return to employment their wages are garnished and they have the arrears that may take years to pay. It can sometimes lead some men to resort to illegal means just to support their children and themselves. If a father should end up incarcerated the child support continues to accrue throughout their sentence. According to USA Facts.org, when an incarcerated parent gets out of prison they have an average of $20,000.00 child support debt. This is a tough hill to climb for a convicted inmate that is now released and expected to find employment and pay this huge sum of money. According to the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, 1 in 5 of the 12.6 million non-custodial parents earn below 80% of their area’s median income. These numbers reflect the problem non-custodial parents have paying their child support obligations.
As you can see, the custodial parent and non-custodial parents have valid points as to the child support issue. In my opinion, there are several things that can be considered. Parents need to be a lot more careful and consider the consequences of deciding to have children. Once you decide to have children, both parents should always make the children the priority. It seems that too many parents use child support enforcement as a weapon against each other. This level of behavior only negatively affects your children. If both parents love and care for their children, they should be willing to put their differences aside for the welfare of their children. When you have to involve child support enforcement and the courts in your battles, the outcome is usually not going to be good. It leaves both parents bitter and sometimes that bitterness is passed on to the children. Once you have children it is no longer about you. It is all about doing all you can to give your child a decent life so that they can be healthy and well adjusted children, physically and mentally. Dragging each other into court can be costly and adds additional stress in your lives, when you can sit down like adults and work through solutions that will benefit both parents and the children. A Mediator or an attorney can be of assistance if both parents cannot come to an agreement. The main problem I see when it comes to child support that affects both parents is legal representation. Family law attorneys usually specialize in child support and child custody issues. Family law attorneys will usually charge an hourly fee and additional charges for appearing in court to represent you. When people are already living in poverty or struggling to make child support payments, they most certainly can’t afford to hire an attorney. This is a huge problem for minorities and poor people in particular, which make up a large portion of the child support cases. When you don’t know the law or have some type of legal representation it puts you at a disadvantage. It seems the only people that make money off of child support enforcement are the states, the courts and attorneys. There needs to be a change in how child support is enforced in this country because it is having a devastating effect on domestic violence, children’s poverty levels, and non-custodial parents’ ability to live with the basic necessities. Having children is a true blessing, but it is also a great responsibility for parents. You owe it to your children to make that process as painless as possible. There are too many selfish parents that only consider their own feelings and motives instead of thinking about what’s really best for the children. Child support enforcement is an issue that does not get talked about enough in our government, and maybe it’s time for that to happen to make it a better and more efficient system that serves the purpose for which it was originally intended.
SOURCES:
Congressional Resource Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10113
Office of Child Support Enforcement
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/css/comms-fact-sheet/office-child-support-enforcement#:~:text=Brief%20History%20of%20the%20Program&text=The%20child%20support%20program%20was%20established%20in%201975
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid_to_Families_with_Dependent_Children#:~:text=The%20program%20grew%20from%20a,women%20to%20join%20the%20workforce.
USA Facts.org
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-child-support-do-parents-actually-receive/
Department of Justice
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/population/qa01203.asp?qaDate=2020
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/private/pdf/264831/child-support-and-housing-instability-infographic.pdf
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