When I was faced with child support, it became incumbent upon me to learn the child support system and its guidelines. This process was not only frustrating, it contributed to my overall frustration as a parent. I learned I’m not alone and concluded the United States is suffering from a pandemic.
“I'm not alone because there are parents across the nation, outraged by the conduct of the other parent and incensed by the atrocities our legal systems have created due to our seeking legal support."
A Nation in Crisis
The issues stemming from child support demand congressional attention! These issues exceed far beyond the state and local levels. In my opinion, the greatest issue in our child support system is moral conduct. And yet, many will argue moral conduct cannot be litigated which is in itself, through and through, a classic American double-standard.
At the heart of child support lies the problem of personal values. The next main conflict is concentrated power. There is no one shoe fits all and there needs to be. We must have a uniform federal child support guideline to meet the demands of raising our children to become productive members of society. Imputed income is not a uniform ‘standard’ - it’s a subpar standard.
In fact, it’s lower than a low-standard. Imagine taking a bar and setting it extremely low. How low can you go? Lower? Even lower? Good luck with that.
Our nation is laser focused on child welfare issues, but it exploits our children. The state conducts a means test to determine what’s in the best interest of our child, but this is not based on morals or values. The decisions are derived from convoluted and conflicting legal precedent because there are too many guidelines, perpetuated by concentrated state and local power.
A Proposition
I argue that we implement a federal law for child support, which would require all states to conduct a financial means test using the same uniform guideline. It is simply not O.K. that each state handle financial support for children in varying models.
Presently, one of three models are implemented to determine the base child support amount and these models (aka guidelines) differ between states. The National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) has listed three versions, but I have extended the Melson Formula under the Income Shares Model because the Melson Formula is, according to the NCSL, “a complicated version of the income shares model”.
Income Shares Model – this guideline is based on the idea that any children living in the household should receive the same proportion of income they would receive if the parents were living as an intact family.
Melson Formula – this formula applies public policy in considering whether the parent’s basic needs are met, in addition to the children, while determining the support obligation.
Percentage of Income Model – this guideline is based on the concept that only the noncustodial parent’s income should be considered in calculating support amounts due and the custodial parent’s income is excluded from the calculation. In this model, there are two ways to determine the percentage of income:
a. Flat Percentage
b. Varying Percentage
According to the NCSL these are the guideline models by state as of February 20, 2019:
Forty (40) states, plus Guam and the Virgin Islands utilize the income shares model: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Seven (7) states use the percentage of income model: Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi, Nevada, North Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. Four of those seven states (Alaska, Mississippi, Nevada and Wisconsin) use the flat percentage model while the other three states (Arkansas, North Dakota and Texas) use the varying percentage model.
Three (3) states use the Melson Formula: Delaware, Hawaii and Montana.
(For a link to each state guidelines, visit http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/guideline-models-by-state.aspx)
A Parent’s Struggle
Each state has its own power to decide how a parent’s income will be calculated to determine a support obligation. Child support gets more complicated when there are matters of jurisdiction over the parent and what kind of income the parent has.
“The most significant component of my argument is centered on parental income.”
The pandemic we face has two components: the child support guidelines and parental income. Without income, we are forcing the legal system to apply legal precedent in the continuity of financially supporting our children, and the state will impute (aka “assign”) income based on two factors: minimum wage and work hours. The court will decide the minimum wage based on the minimum wage for your state where the payor parent resides, and a forty (40) hour workweek, which is equivalent to a full-time job. In the interest of imputed income, there needs to be a uniform wage, separate and distinct from the federal minimum wage for employment, when imputing a payor parent for child support because these numbers are inefficient.
“Parent’s cannot survive on a minimum wage child support order and the atrocity our legal system therefore commits, is keeping our children in a state of perpetual welfare by reducing absent parent homes to poverty.”
Additionally, we need to focus on the inexcusable loophole that is created by our child support system that “deadbeat dads” are frequently exercising to minimize and evade their full child support responsibility and obligation. Further, this loophole produces the duplicitous turpitude of our country’s legal and child welfare systems. I’m referring to self-employment income.
A Nauseating Avoidance
This is not an attack on gender discrimination. I do not argue that men will avoid child support over women or vice versa, however, I implore you to ponder the likeliness that a woman who finding herself pregnant, chooses to carry the child full-term and must raise said child as a single mother, will then incorporate a business when she is faced with the overwhelming litigious child support establishment process. What would be the point of doing that? How would that benefit her child, or her?
I have personally experienced these issues, and the information relating to parents that have self-employment income under the child support system is remarkable.
Here is what I’ve found:
A Google search inquiry for the terms, “how to avoid child support” results in 316,000,000 hits (as of December 14, 2019). The point isn’t whether these hits are verified, the point is the information is available online. I’m referring to enumerated instructions on how to avoid child support and the most astonishing element of this query is that lawyers are the people who are often directing men how to do this.
“Our legal system, in the hands of a non-privatized internet, is instructing men how to evade child support.”
A Hopeful Conclusion
It is maddening for the parent who is fighting a child support battle with an absent and noncustodial parent who apathetically, and with disregard to their child and in contempt of our legal system, becomes self-employed for the purpose of intentionally repressing income to minimize and evade their support obligation.
We need to put an end to this obstruction and the only way to do this is by creating a federal uniform child support guideline that is not unique to self-employment.
Now, if a parent were to become self-employed because they desire to make a lot of money to support their children and their lives, and they reported this income honestly, I wouldn’t argue that we need this change. However, that’s not what is rampant in our child support court rooms. Too many women are left doing double the work to make up for the absent parent’s deficiencies.
