Majority behind on Child Support earn less than 10K

This 2004 study by the Office of Child Support Enforcement shows that, according to their figures, 63% of all people who are behind on their child support report earning less than $10,000 per year. That accounts for 70% of all the child support owed in this country. The same figures show that 34% of child support obligors report earning no money at all during the year.

Of course those are reported earnings, and no one thinks that all those people report everything they earn. That would be as foolish as assuming that the child support system records everything they pay, which it doesn't. A lot of non-custodial parents make payments in cash or as gifts which don't get recorded by "the system." Sanford Braver's study in Maricopa (AZ) County found that only 43% of child support was made to the clerk of the court and thus officially recorded.

Still, it doesn't take much imagination to understand that, overwhelmingly, the people who owe the money don't have it to give. To say that the majority of the people who are behind on their payments are fathers is to state the obvious. Given that 84% of non-custodial parents are fathers, how could it be otherwise?

An interesting aspect of the report is this quotation: "The best way to reduce the total national child support debt is to avoid accumulating arrears in the first place. The best ways to avoid the accumulation of arrears are to set appropriate orders initially, modify orders via simple procedures promptly when family circumstances change and immediately intervene when current support is not paid (emphasis mine)."

Are states listening? I doubt it, but in case they are, let me say what I've said before - family courts need to establish quick, summary ways to adjust child support payments "when family circumstances change." When a non-custodial parent loses a job, has a health crisis or for some other legitimate reason is unable to earn the income on which child support was originally established, there should be an easy way for him/her to appear in court without an attorney

, but with the custodial parent on notice, and explain facts to the judge.

Courts could appoint special child support modification masters whose job it would be to hear those cases. The evidence required to obtain a modification could be published and standardized - letters from doctors, employers, etc. should be sufficient. No attorney would be necessary and the rules of evidence relaxed. Testimony would be under oath. False testimony would be punished.

Sanford Braver found that, when obligors who had lost their job were removed from the database, between 80% and 100% of child support was paid in full and on time. So the obvious solution to child support arrearages is as the OCSE says, to make it easy, quick and cheap to get those orders modified when circumstances warrant.