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The Utah Senate is currently considering a bill
that will allow the Utah Office of Recovery Services to have the driver's
licenses of “deadbeat" parents seized if they fall 60 days behind on their child
support. HB 15, which passed the House 43-25, is being touted as a “tough but
fair” way to get Utah’s 72,000 child support evaders to pony up the $325 million
they allegedly owe.
While the bill’s supporters are understandably concerned about the economic
issues faced by custodial parents, their support for HB 15 is based on several
incorrect assumptions. For over two decades the public has been inundated with
images of high-flying divorced dads selfishly stiffing their kids. Yet 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.
HB 15's supporters say
they're confident that the bill's punitive measures will be aimed only at
obligors who are able to pay, but who refuse to. Yet child support enforcement
agencies rarely follow this humane, intelligent approach.
Over the past 18 months, “deadbeat parents” have been the targets of
highly-publicized law enforcement 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 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 on their debts stop accruing. Moreover, child support
enforcement agencies are notorious for creating erroneous arrearages through
bureaucratic bungling.
While fathers are usually blamed for divorce's negative economic impact on
children, what’s often overlooked is the simple fact that the income that once
supported one household cannot support two at the same level, no matter how many
punitive measures the government employs or how much fathers pay. Those who
insist that the average child’s standard of living will not or should not
decline after a divorce are kidding themselves.
Much if not most of Utah’s $325 million paper child support debt is
uncollectible. Instead of enacting new punitive measures, the legislature should
concentrate on fixing the child support system’s myriad problems.
This article first appeared in the
Southern Utah News (2/14/07).
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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