Build and establish a federal fund for child support recipients which allows them to immediately begin receiving child support payments as needed. Upon successful DNA-based paternity testing, allow these parents to borrow (“draw”) against future payments at no interest rate. Have the payers pay this new federal fund directly, to include back pay for missed payments. Require that custodial access be granted for all potential recipients. Provide routine audits of expenditures and make them accessable online. Utilize fairness and patience within this system to ensure that no parent ever again goes to jail for unpaid child support.
Constitutionally, this should be workable under the Commerce clause. Total costs, including administration, should be minimal, and the positive impact it would have on poverty-stricken children would be immense.
Auditing the mother’s payment decisions is too much micro-management and offers no real benefit to the children or the co-parenting relationship. All this will do is cause the noncustodial parent to fight with the primary caretaker over every little thing, and trying to control her parenting choices, when the best thing for separated parents to do is to stay out of each other’s lives/business as much as possible.
A better idea would be to simply limit the amount of child support that has to be paid, so that it’s only enough to cover, for example, 1/4 or no more than 1/2 of the child’s actual living, food and other expenses. This way you will always know that she only has enough to spend on the child in the first place…
I would suggest that the maximum and minimum child support that should be allowable is equal to your state or locality’s MBSAC levels for that number of children, regardless of income. MBSAC levels are set by welfare (Cash Aid) regulations.
OTOH, collection efforts should be suspended based on the parent’s lack of ability to pay. I agree that the deadbeat dad shouldn’t be going to jail. Overdue child support should NOT go to credit reports. And there must be limits to if or how long the agency can remove his driver’s license. My reasoning is because all this does is severely harm the dad’s ability to ever work again anyway, and will prevent him from visiting the children.
I suggest that we should do away with any consideration of parenting time percentages, as it has nothing to do with actual rental costs, and all it does it cause dads to go into a frenzy and fighting to go back to court just to fight for every percentage point, even though much of this percentage time includes times when they aren’t even spending quality time with the child, as the child is either in school or sleeping. Parents need to be more focused on what the best schedule is for everyone, not percentages.
I would instead suggest that one parent is marked as the “residential” parent, and the other parent is marked as the “nonresidential” parent. And the residential parent should never be ordered to pay child support to the other. The housing portion of the child support should be fixed based on number of children only; the food/clothing/rest of the portion could be adjustable.
Respectfully, auditing is the only way to ensure the money goes to the child and not the parent. Limiting the total amount of money paid does not guarantee that the money will go to the child, which is the fundamental point of child support. Parents using child support as a substitution of cost is a fundamental flaw within the existing program. It should be no issue for the overwhelming majority of child support recipients to prove rent and food costs. SNAP users do it every day.
Support and custody agreements can be and should be mutual, and perceived infringements of those agreements should rightfully go to the courts for remedy. Circumstances change all the time, and by centralizing payments we create flexibility for hard luck payers. Custody should serve the best interests of the child. If one parent refuses potential custody to another parent, no support should be paid to that parent while the courts sort it out.
Last point: this is 2024. There are “deadbeat” mothers, too.
Do you think that people just make up the cost of food and rent?
I am an eligibility worker for Cash Aid and Food Stamps. If you want child support to go off how welfare works, then here are some facts.
We most certainly do NOT spend our government paid time analyzing receipts. And the Cash Aid, while often not enough for all necessary expenses, Cash Aid can be used for ANYTHING. The main thing that would concern us is if the benefits were stolen, or if they had unreported income, or if the so-called “absent parent” was actually in the home with unreported income. If they are out-of-county or state, they would need to either transfer their case or discontinue here.
Secondly, as I said, welfare benefits are often calculated based on a break-down on an estimate of the monthly cost of food, housing, utilities and clothing. These estimates are honestly a joke, especially for housing, severe under-estimates. It doesn’t even cover car insurance or car payments. When I see the cost of rent, I have absolutely no problem using my common sense to know that the family is going to spend all that money on rent and necessities.
As I said, Cash Aid allotments can technically be spent on ANYTHING, even allows cash withdrawals just like a debit card, whereas Food Stamp allotments can only be spent on food items at almost all grocery stores. So if you want to model child support like that, then you can make the food allotment only available for food items… And as I said a limited, fixed amount would prevent judges from ordering oppressively high child support amounts.
Now if there is concern that she is not feeding the children, or not housing them, or otherwise neglecting them, call CPS and/or report that to the family court judge. In that case, custody should be changed. However, you don’t seem to be expressing such a concern, only that the noncustodial parent should be able to micromanage the spending and parenting decisions for the children during her time. And you have not articulated any benefit to the child or the recipient of that desire, that outweighs the amount of money and stress that it would cost to litigate your desire to micromanage.
There are too many narcissists in the world who will attack and over-scrutinize the mother for every little thing, and in the end, parents have better things to spend their time on and focus on than petty disagreements, and if she is the primary custodial parent, then she is the best qualified person to decide how she will spend her child support money. No one said it was perfect.
SNAP by definition is audited at the point of purchase for eligibility. No poring over of receipts is needed. Users can only buy eligible goods. A similar system for child support would be easy to implement and would ensure that child support goes to the child.
I have twice mentioned that money going to the parent and not to the child is a fundamental failing of the existing system. Increased money going TO the needs of the child IS the benefit to the child. Stopping parents from spending money recklessly or (sadly) on themselves instead of the children is immensely important in a world where many children whose parents receive child support still suffer from neglect. It is in the best interests of the children that both parents have a say in how money is spent.
You have twice used gendered language when referring to the current system. Your assumptions that all recipients of child support are women and that men are the only narcissists are particularly condemning. I hope for the sake of the people you assist that you are not this misandrist in your vocation.
It is clear to me that your own personal biases are preventing you from having a legitimate discussion about the flaws of the current system. If you have your own policy ideas on this subject, please create a separate post to discuss them. I have no further motivation to attempt to explain how to fix the existing failing government to a person who is employed by it.
I have already suggested that I would support the idea of issuing the food portion of the child support such that it could only be spent on food, just like the Food Stamps EBT card. That would not require anyone to “monitor” receipts or specific spending purchases.
Finally, since we are on the subject of child support, I wanted to share more of my general thoughts about the child support system:
I have been thru this system. The child support system is so screwed up, and really harms everyone involved. The worst example is this: Primary custodial mothers can be ordered to pay the deadbeat dad child support, if she makes more income than him. I currently have 65% custody (after he repeatedly took me back to court to cut away from the previous custody agreement we had) and he has stopped working since about 6 years ago. I could be ordered to pay HIM $800-$1000 child support. (Right now, the child support case is closed. He used that threat, as well as the threat of continued litigation abuse, to force me to close the child support case and to agree to a marital separation agreement more favorable to him.)
I’m actually terrified of the idea that he could take me to child support court. He actually acts like he’s doing me a favor for not demanding child support. Again, he is the non-custodial parent, with a history of abuse, and only gained more custody because he repeatedly took me back to family court as a response to me having filed the child support application. He uses these threats to remain close to me, and manipulate, as part of his campaign of coercive control. Here, I put myself through college and got a decent job because I thought that the financial independence would protect me from deadbeats like him. Instead, I feel trapped, and that I don’t have true freedom in my life, and can’t even think about what I “want” because there’s no viable options for me on the table.
From the perspective of the primary caretaker/mother, I listed additional screwed up things about the child support system, on pages 4-6 and 13-14 on this google doc:
Also, as both a child of a deadbeat dad, and a wife of a deadbeat dad (who loves his kids & has regular visitation time), I do agree that the child support agencies should find a more effective way at enforcing the child support. They shouldn’t be revoking driver’s licenses so loosely, or for indefinite periods of time, because that not only prevents him from working, but it also prevents him from picking up his kids. I don’t agree with the threat of jail-time for lack of child support. I’m not sure if child support debt shows on credit reports? But if it does, I oppose that idea as well. It’s just overkill, lazy and I think just makes things worse.
I agree that no parent should be ordered to pay super-high amounts, but I also think that there should be a set minimum amount ordered. If the child support system were simplified, it would save everyone a lot of stress, fighting and legal fees.
I personally suggest that we do away with the concept of parenting time-share percentages, and that there should be a federal set minimum, and a federal cap, on the child support to be ordered, such that a judge can only order something in between that. Allowing calculations of time-share percentages typically just causes anti-child support dads to go into a litigation frenzy, just to change percentage points, even if he has no intention of actually spending more quality parenting time with the child. In addition, for most moms, being the primary caretaker is so deeply tied to our personal identity, that removing that identity from us via 50/50 feels like a threat not just to our identity, but our ability to do our job to effectively mother our children and adequately prepare them for life. Additionally, 50/50 is harmful for young children and babies, because they have a developmental needs for their primary attachment figure, and for routine. Overall, tying child support to time-share percentages compels parents to care more about the percentage, than they do about what the best schedule is for their kids and family overall.
I suggest that one parent is simply marked as the residential parent (to determine the school district, where the child primarily sleeps, who is the primary attachment figure, who makes final child-care/school decisions).
The minimum child support should, perhaps, be the housing portion of the local MBSAC levels that Cash Aid is based on. These levels differ by county and states because of cost-of-living. The maximum child support limit that the recipient should be allowed to receive, perhaps should be the MBSAC level for housing, utilities, food and clothing. The judge could order something in between.
While I wish that child support agencies had more effective collection practices, I would say that if the non-residential parent has financial difficulties paying, then he should be eligible for a pause on the collection efforts. The debt shouldn’t go on credit reports; he shouldn’t go to jail for it; there must be guardrails against the use of revoking his driver’s license.
This google doc has a screen shot of the MBSAC levels for San Diego County, CA, as a reference: