Child Support in the News

By Lena Trondson • March 5, 2010

Just some more articles about the rise of “dead-beat” dads due to job losses. This reminds me of the article I wrote last year in the “Petition for Child Support reform” where we would be seeing an increase in “dead-beat dads” due to the recession and loss of regular incomes. This article is from the Dispatch Politics website in Ohio.

“As the recession drags on, record numbers of Ohio parents can’t afford their court-ordered child-support payments. The impact is astonishing: Statewide, child-support collections in January plunged 20 percent from the previous month, a drop of more than $27 million.

And state officials expect collections will sink even lower as unemployment benefits — which many jobless parents now rely on to pay child support — dry up.

In January, more than $13 million in child support statewide was withheld from unemployment checks.

“We’re going to see collections plummet when unemployment benefits run out,” said Susan Brown, director of the Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency.

“We could lose almost $1 million in payments a month,” she added, referring to county statistics.

Without the financial support, Brown said, many children and their families will be forced to seek food stamps, welfare and other tax-funded services.

That could start happening soon. About 25,000 Ohioans will exhaust jobless benefits this week with thousands more falling off the rolls in coming weeks unless Congress approves another extension of federal jobless aid.

“It’s a huge concern,” said Jeff Aldridge, deputy director of the state office of child support. “If there is no further extension, those people will roll off unemployment and will have no money to make support payments.”

Over the past year, continued job loss has caused a surge in the number of parents paying child support from an unemployment check instead of a paycheck.

In December, jobless benefits were used to pay more than $14 million in child support, a staggering 30 percent increase from the previous month.

It’s a trend that is responsible in large part for the drop in collections overall, officials said.

When a noncustodial parent loses a job, he or she can petition to have the court-ordered support reduced.

A spike in requests for administrative reviews shows that many parents have done so.

In Franklin County, such requests jumped 40 percent in 2009 and reached an all-time monthly high of 345 in September. In December, the most-recent statistics available, 277 people sought to have their payments reduced.

“When parents lose their job, we ask them to come in and get a review and adjustment so they can get their child support lowered and don’t build up arrearages,” Brown said.

While child-support orders statewide grew by 16,000 last year, the total amount parents were ordered to pay dropped $3 million, an indication that parents are paying less.

Gary Harris, 28, of Hilliard, last week asked county officials to review his support orders. He’s paid little or no support for his three children since he lost his job after being sidelined by a knee injury last spring.

“I just haven’t been able to pay,” Harris said. “I want to but, until I get another job, it’s tough.” by ccandisky@ dispatch.com

Here is another article from The Examiner.com about a pilot program “Investing in Fathers” that they just started in the state if New York. The article is written by Brooke Richie and here is the link.

The State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) announced yesterday that it wil be allocating $2.7 million in funding for its Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers Initiative- A State-wide child support and fatherhood-engagement initiative aimed at helping noncustodial fathers (primarily low-income) become more involved with their children’s lives, financially and emotionally. Two New York City organizations – Seedco and STRIVE – will receive close to $1 million of this funding to continue work that they began as part of a State-funded pilot fatherhood initiative four years ago.

The Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers Initiative was enacted by the NY State Legislature in 2006. It is essentially a child support initiative, utilizing a two-part approach to helping low-income noncustodial parents (nearly all of whom are fathers) pay their child support in full. The first provision of the State’s legislation facilitated the development of pilot programs to provide intensive employment
and other supportive services to low-income noncustodial parents. Both Seedco and STRIVE participated in one of these three-year pilot programs, which ended last fall. The second provision established a state refundable earned income tax credit (EITC) for noncustodial parents with low earnings who pay the full amount of their current child support obligation in a given year. OTDA began unrolling the Non-custodial parent EITC in 2008.

The organizations funded through this initiative will provide participants with parenting, education and employment services, among other supportive services. The three-year pilot programs demonstrated there is great demand for these services. The pilot organizations served over 2000 individuals, the majority of whom were highly disadvantaged. Nearly all of the clients that participated in the pilot initiatives were unemployed or working less than 20 hours per week at enrollment, 79 percent had no more than a high school education, and 60 percent had an arrest record.

OTDA’s continued investment in these fatherhood programs, even as the State struggles to navigate one of the largest budget deficits in its history, and funding for services from mental health to housing are being slashed, evinces an underlying ideological position — child support is a critical vehicle for low-income children’s ultimate economic and emoitional support. This was articulated by Kristin Proud, OTDA’s Deputy Secretary for Human Services, Technology and Operations:

This initiative will help low-income fathers to not only better meet their child support obligations, but to better connect with their children. This is integral to our core mission as studies continually show that children who have the emotional and financial support of both parents are more likely to experience success later in life.”