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Three roofers, two construction workers, a musician and four men with no known
occupations just became very famous. They are the Ohio “deadbeat dads” targeted
in the Butler County Child Support Enforcement Agency’s highly-publicized new
campaign which puts mug shots of the County’s “Most Wanted Deadbeat Parents” on
pizza boxes. Agency Executive Director Cynthia Brown and campaign supporter Kay
Cullen of the National Child Support Enforcement Association would have us
believe that the men targeted are high-flying deadbeats who are selfishly
stiffing their children. Research contradicts this.
That Butler County was unable to come up with even one alleged “deadbeat” who
has an education or a middle-class job might give public officials less zealous
than Brown and Cullen some pause. Butler County’s child support debtors are in
no way atypical. Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement data shows that
two-thirds of those behind on child support nationwide earn poverty level wages;
less than four percent of the national child support debt is owed by those
earning $40,000 or more a year. According to the largest federally-funded study
of divorced dads ever conducted, unemployment, not willful neglect, is the
largest cause of failure to pay child support.
The “Most Wanted Deadbeat Parents” lists put out by many states and counties
illustrate this problem. Far from being lists of well-heeled businessmen,
lawyers, and accountants, the vast majority of the men on these lists do low
wage and often seasonal work, and owe large sums of money which they could never
hope to pay off. Even a person with a college degree is a rare find on these
lists.
Over the past 18 months, “deadbeat parents” have been the targets of
highly-publicized law enforcement and/or public relations actions in Texas,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Arizona. Texas’ Attorney General Greg Abbott said those
on his list of Top 10 evaders were “singled out” because they “have the ability”
to pay but “refuse to do so.” Yet his list consists largely of unskilled
laborers, not one of whom appears to have an education. The big wage earner in
the group is a plumber. One wonders what the financial condition of those who
weren’t “singled out” for their ability to pay is.
Virginia’s “Most Wanted” list was topped by a laborer, a carnival hired hand,
and a construction worker, who collectively somehow owed over a quarter million
dollars in child support. Kentucky’s list sported only one obligor with an
education, and the most common designation for occupation was "laborer." Near
the top of Arizona’s list was a maintenance man who owed $90,223 and, best of
all, a roofer who owed $240,581.
How did men of such humble means end up owing so much money? The arrearages are
likely created in large part because the child support system is often mulishly
impervious to the economic realities working people face, such as layoffs, wage
cuts, unemployment, and work-related injuries. According to the Urban Institute,
less than one in 20 non-custodial parents who suffers a substantial drop in
income is able to get courts to reduce his or her child support payments.
Worse, by federal law child support orders cannot be retroactively modified, no
matter how mistaken, misguided or ridiculous. Nor does the interest charged on
their debt--at unusually high rates in many states--stop accruing. Moreover,
child support enforcement agencies are notorious for creating erroneous
arrearages through bureaucratic bungling, and are very slow to fix them.
Cullen asserts that there is $106 billion in cumulative past-due child support
since child support enforcement agencies were formed in the mid-1970s. Yet this
figure is largely meaningless because most of these arrearages are
artificially-inflated paper debt, and do not represent what child obligors
should actually have been expected to pay.
While there are some fathers who don’t live up to their financial obligations to
their children, the larger problem lies not with non-custodial fathers (or
mothers), but instead with the child support system. Humiliating and arresting
low-income parents is neither fair nor useful. What’s needed instead is an
overhaul of the system, so that noncustodial parents who earn low wages aren't
turned into criminals because they’ve failed to pay obligations which are beyond
their reach.
This article first appeared in the
Cincinnati Post (4/2/07).
Jeffery
M. Leving is one of America's most prominent family law attorneys. He is the
author of the new HarperCollins book
Divorce Wars: A Field Guide to the Winning Tactics, Preemptive Strikes, and Top
Maneuvers When Divorce Gets Ugly. His website is
www.dadsrights.com.
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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