Current child support guidelines have serious logical design flaws that sometimes generate child support amounts that paradoxically “starve” rather than “feed” children. They often make it impossible for single parents to properly care for their children, forcing some parents into perpetual debt and incarceration. For examples:
Despite 50/50 shared parenting, the paying parent can end up with less disposable income than the recipient parent.
A father with two children with different mothers can pay more child support to the high-income mother than to the poor mother.
A mother with 50/50 shared parenting of three kids can pay more than half her disposable income to two different fathers.
These and other similarly absurd and damaging examples can be found here:
Every year, the federal government (NHHS/OCSS) spends more than 4 billions dollar to help states enforce these mathematically flawed child support guidelines that impoverish many children and families, that force some teenagers to work to help pay their own child support, and that unjustly send some parents to jail.
POLICY PROPOSAL: To protect children and families, the federal government should withdraw financial support to states unless they implement child support guidelines without logical/mathematical flaws.
I agree. I have been thru this system. The calculations are so screwed up, and I have another example. 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: