Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support

Source: New York Times

MILWAUKEE — The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children.

Close to half the states pass along none of collected child support to families on welfare, while most others pay only $50 a month to a custodial parent, usually the mother, even though the father may be paying hundreds of dollars each month.

Critics say using child support to repay welfare costs harms children instead of helping them, contradicting the national goal of strengthening families, and is a flaw in the generally lauded national campaign to increase collections.

Karla Hart, a struggling mother of four here, held out her monthly statement from the county child-support office.

Paid by the father: $229.40.

Amount deducted to repay federal costs of welfare: $132.18.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/01/us/01child.html?em&ex=1196658000&en=ef6d0301de1d9539&ei=5087%0A

you mean when father's pay child support, they're sending a check to the government and not their ex wife or something?

wow, I didn't know that.

what a messed up system.

My ex went 5 years without reporting his raises/bonuses to the courts even though I knew (from our years of marriage) that his company gave out both annually. After being told by multiple lawyer offices that they would charge me an arm and a leg just to get back into court, I finally found out that the state AG office would represent my kids for FREE and drag my ex back into court. The service is not based on income, they will take anyone's case.
Took a year to get thru the crowded system but we finally got our court date and the kids got their extra $450/month out of the bastard..no court/lawyer cost to me.
The only complaint I had was that even though there was proof that his income had been higher for those 5 years and he withheld $$ from the kids, the increased CS order was not backdated (per state law, apparently), it started the day we went to court...leaving the kids without the $10,000+ their father withheld from them those years.

Is that crazy or what? You go to the AG to get $$$ because you need it to feed your kids and they tell you that first they will make a determination if they think it's worth it to pursue, THEN, they say that they will charge you to do it. I couldn't believe the letter I read.

I'm glad to hear your situation worked out, how long ago was it?

A program is started to repay welfare and help keep moms off welfare by getting them their support - and now it's twisted into a benefit to the citizen so they can collect even more money. I don't know how they get away with charging but I think there should be some group filing legal action on this because it's completely wrong.

I just looked it up on our county court website that shows court docket info..it has the AG involvement and CS modification in April 2002.

It makes everybody pay upfront for even basic services about to be rendered.

Someday in the future, I predict that we'll need to give debit/credit card information to have the police show up to non-emergency scenes and file police reports!

(more than half in many cases) to repay itself for any welfare benefits paid to the mother and her children. Kind of reminds me of the story where Wal-Mart sued an employee for Health care costs after she had won a lawsuit against a trucker who had hit her and left her permanently disabled. The powerful will get what they see is theirs, one way or another-no matter how badly it hurts those in need.

In half the states it gives the mother $50 or so, and keeps the majority of it. This program was specifically designed to get money into the state to repay welfare. I can't figure out why people are expressing shock all these years later.

Child Support to be collected by the States as opposed to the way it used to be collected, though the courts and County Clerks (in Florida).

At the time, the mother of my husband's daughter had moved her out of state and he was paying extra each month through child support payments to enable the mother to buy health insurance for the child in the state where they lived.

When the County Clerks were administering the payments, she received every penny of the of the payments. When the State took over, they paid it all at first, then docked her payment by the overage so that she wasn't even receiving the regular amount of child support.

Since the law requiring the state to administer the payments was not yet effective, the mother requested that the payments go back through the County Clerk's office.

Then the law became effective, and the State started sending the child support payments to the wrong state.

The mother wasn't receiving any payments, while we were paying right on schedule every month.

The resulting fiasco created such ugly hard feelings between my husband and his daughter's mother (who was going through a nasty divorce and not feeling benevolent toward anyone) that they haven't spoken to each other since. And that has been many years ago. The daughter is now 21 years old.

It took six months to find out what the problem was and to fix it, but the damage was permanent.

Nice way for the state to try to bring familes together...

I had no idea. My jaw dropped to the floor when I read this. Damn, what a disgusting practice!!!!

Many Mother's complain about this and it's now all about the State getting their cut not the Child.

whichever parent (usually the dad) and sent to whichever county the child support order was issued in. I know at one this was done whether or not the custodial parent was receiving welfare (I assume it still is). If the welfare was not involved then the whole amount was sent to the parent.

They collected child support from my children's father for almost 2 years before even notifying me that they were collecting it (my ex and I are not friends and never speak).

Since I never received welfare or any other kind of assistance, I now wonder if they sent me 100% of the money they collected.

no free lunch, they made sure of that!

The State has to make their money somehow. What would you have them do instead? Make corporations pay greater taxes?

they should take away their "personhood" if they refuse to render unto Ceasar as the rest of us do. Here in Florida the State's tax revenues are drying up post Jeb because of his MASSIVE tax cuts for the wealthiest. Of course, shrinking government (while looting the treasury) so that it could be "drown in a bath tub" was part of the Neo-con plan all along.

life in a Republican Paradise!

As a past tense welfare recipient I have experience in how the process works.

WHEN one signs up for welfare they sign off on the fact that the state will then try to enforce child support against the absent parent. Unfortunately, many times there are not any enforceable orders in place when the family first signs up for benefits which means they are straight up given cash welfare benefits from the coffers of the government. Often many months have passed before enforceable child support orders are put into place, assuming the absent parent even has a job (in my experience, if a parent is legitimately unemployed or otherwise on state assistance then their 'order' is limited to around $50 per month).

Move forward 9 months to the time when a child support order is put into place and enforceable. For discussions sake let's say we have an order of $300 per month for 2 children. The absent parent will likely have to pay from the first day the court proceedings were initiated, 9 x $300, for a total of $2700 already owed and in arrears. Thus this parent will owe $300 per month plus arrears.

That whole 9 months the absent parent sloughed off their financial obligations, the children were being given a monthly stipend of benefits from the government... cash, food stamps, medical and likely housing... (CHA CHING!). They WERE being supported those many months, not by the absent parent, but rather by the system. They DID get their "$300 a month in support" but it didn't come from absent parent.

Now that absent parent is working and is paying child support, and as long as the family continue to remain on 'the system' (thus receiving multiple levels of 'support' that surely bypass the minimal amount paid by the other parent), the government has a legitimate right to 'recoup' the money they did pay, and continue to pay, toward the upkeep of the family.

If the custodial parent took the leap and went off welfare (speaking cash benefits only, one doesn't have to assign rights to the state for food stamps, or housing) then they would be eligible to receive the FULL amount of ordered support, with the state then only taking any arrears paid during that particular month.

I was a teen mom who depended on the system for a few years. My child's father didn't pay support for many of those years but my child still did get her monthly support, in the form of a welfare check (which in actuality was larger than the child support dad was ordered to pay). The state made sure that my daughter got her $110 monthly support even if Dad didn't pay but did so with my agreement that when and if Dad did pay the state would be entitled to recoup the money they paid on my daughters behalf. Even though they rarely were able to recoup money from Dad, and no matter how small the amount, the first $50 was sent to us and the rest applied toward the state debt. Later on when I remarried and no longer received welfare, if Dad paid support we always first got the full ordered amount with the state then taking any extra they were able to recoup for that month.

I have another child who also receives child support but because I refrained from signing him up for welfare we are eligible to receive every penny his father eventually pays. However, if I had signed him up for welfare and had received cash on his behalf because Dad wasn't paying support, when Dad was finally forced to pay support for those months would it really be right for us to 'double dip'?

If it makes any difference, it's not like the government is asking for or otherwise taking more money than they paid out. In a way welfare is like 'guaranteed child support' regardless of whether or not absent parent pays, with the recipient knowingly agreeing that the state has the right to recoup the expended funds from the responsible party.

I don't understand why some posters are having such a problem with this.

Since Dad failed to pay on time as required by law, he should be required to reimburse the state, NOT the kids. Call it interest.

familiar.

I don't see why people should be able to "live off the system" indefinitely or for very, very long periods of time at the expense of the tax payers and the government.

I am not talking about people who need help for awhile but those who "live off the system" and then teach their offspring how to do the same and believe that others should support them while they don't work...it is a very familiar story.

The family was supported by the state, the father, if he ever pays, along with the mother should repay the debt.

too? After all, the amount above the child support owed by the father was alloted because you weren't supporting your child sufficiently either. Seems to me that the state should go after custodial parents when they go off the system too. Fair's fair. The state should be paid back every cent of it.

I assume that you don't have a problem with that.

:sarcasm:

on edit: I have explained my perspective here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2383663&mesg_id=2383821

not only do they take the support and then pay the parent. now anybody receiving child support will have to pay $25 for the privilege of receiving it. $25 per year from parents already struggling. child support funds are being cut on the collections enforcement end. if women weren't getting their orders enforced before, they'll surely have problems in the future. i don't know if these are state or federal mandates but, it is just shameful!!!!!

we're not treating our future right.

'compassionate conservatism' at work.

I have paid child support for 12 yrs. My ex and I get along great, and she even gets along with my current wife very well. I pay through the county clerks office, and they forward it to her. I could just as easily mail it to my ex and eliminate the need for the clerks office.
I realize our relationship may not be the norm, but when famililies are getting along fine, why the need for intervention?

When I divorced, my kids were aged 13 and 3. I pay $650/mo, religiously, along with furnishing anything else the kids need. The youngest spends the summers with me. I put the oldest through college (she just graduated with her MBA) and still pay the $650/mo for the one child (per divorce decree).

My current wife was a marriage counselor (not mine), and I credit her for the way we all get along. She made us all understand that our duty was to raise our kids in the best environment possible, and put the bickering aside (though there was never any real hostility between us).

I can't tell you how nice it is to have everyone get along We are just one big extended family! My youngest comes to my house everyday after school for personal tutoring (she is a marginal student), and her mother picks her up when she gets off work. My mother still invites my ex and her husband to Sunday dinners at her house, and none of us would have it any other way! If only everyone could get along like this, the kids would be so much better off.

Holding on to animosity is ridiculous and selfish. Happiness comes to those who seek it.

(I just wanted to post this to show divorce doesn't have to be a negative. Sometimes it's better for all involved and can be made into a positive thing with a little effort)

though my parents weren't best friends, there wasn't any open hostility toward one another. My father's parents still invited my mom up for the holidays. My dad and his girlfriend were psychologists, so they did what they could to make it a healthier environment for my sister and I (though we didn't see that much of them during any given month. Maybe three or four days at best-and neither ever helped me with homework. So you really are going the extra mile). Unfortunately, my atheist mom became a born again when I was a teenager and suddenly became very judgmental-especially when it came to my father and his girlfriend.Once again GOP fire n' brimstone'family values" wrecked a a situation that had been working pretty well!

A private buisness/lawyer that during the divorce was assigned by the judge to represent the kids in the divorce.. It was the norm for each judge to assign a case to that office. It went OK for a bit but then the office would claim to get backlogged and while they were getting the $$ from ex's workplace (taken directly out of his check) they would SIT on the damn money for weeks at a time.
I pissed them off one time cuz I contacted the person at ex's workplace who was responsible for sending the $$ and when I told her about the delay she said that I was not the first custodial parent to call about not getting the $ from this county GAL office. So ex didn't have the $, my kids' weren't getting it, the $ was sitting in the GAL office/account for 2-3 weeks after the date it should have been given to the kids! This went on for like 2-3 months.
I called the local media (print and TV news channel investigators) to suggest they look into this business that the judges were referring case to....no one would listen to me. At all. GAL would claim that they were overloaded yet they had no problem taking new cases (they take like a $10 or $20 fee from each CS payment as a fee).

TWO YEARS later the Dallas Morning News calls me saying that they and the State of Texas were investigating problems at my county's GAL office and that I had "written in about it a while ago"..uh, YEAH, I kept repeating TWO years ago I tried to tell you guys there was something shady going on there.
The AG office only got involved once I asked them to get my ex back in court..since then (2002) the CS goes from my ex to the AG office to the GAL office.

n/t

That's what it sounds like. So when the child support came in, those extra amounts were taken back.

It does sound harsh and silly, even if legal. Maybe the law needs to be changed.

As for the small amount of that child support check example in the story - $229.40 - that's not the fault of the government or me or you. No doubt about it...it's tough when a woman has a child and gets stiffed by a deadbeat dad, esp. one who doesn't make much money to begin with. It always has been tough. It always will be. But there's nothing I can do about it, except encourage the woman not to have more children until they are sure they can afford to pay for the child's growing up expenses in a happy, healthy environment. That means learning a skill to get a good job before having a child.

But back to the issue at hand. Even if it is legal, it sounds unnecessarily harsh. I mean, we're subsidizing Exxon, for Pete's sake. If we're going to give money away, I'd rather see it go to poor children than Exxon.

They helped with apparently uncollectible child support; at least uncollectible in a timely way. So if they get paid back by the child support obligor, what's the problem with that? Without the government involvement, the obligee would not have received anything at all, and would have had no remedy but trying to collect directly from the obligor. At least the government stepped in and paid the $$ (which it possibly might never have been reimbursed for) so the kids wouldn't starve.