Apr 01 2009
Economy in Crisis: Child Support is in Chaos over Current Massive Job Losses; Family Courts Overwhelmed with Can’t Pay Child Supporters:
Economy in Crisis: Child Support is in Chaos over Current Massive Job Losses; Family Courts Overwhelmed with Can’t Pay Child Supporters:
By Marc Chamot
New alarming report is showing a drastic rise in child support defaults, too many Americans are just losing their jobs. As I said before on my blogs folks, what in the hell are President Barack Obama and the Democrats doing about jobs?
Job losses is now affecting every economical spectrum and way of life in America.
It seems like jobs are not being addressed seriously by these herds of politicos, look around and everywhere, who is really addressing these unemployment issues? The mainstream Medias are bringing it up, I’ve been bringing it up, this New York Times story is also bringing it up, but is Washington really listening? It’s like their focus are only in baling out bankers, insurance industries, Afghanistan and Iraq, but no jobs are being created for regular working folks.
“The same story echoed a dozen times through Room E8 of Manhattan Family Court in a single day: fathers, pinched by the recession, pleading for a reduction in child support. A salesman at Saks Fifth Avenue who is estranged from his teenage daughter said he feared he would be included in the next round of layoffs expected at his store.”
“The court will typically order fathers to pay a portion of their unemployment benefits in child support. But if their unemployment runs out, and they have no income, the court will temporarily resort to what is called “open support,” Ms. Marks said. What that means, she explained, is you don’t have to pay any child support.”
Fighting Over Child Support after the Pink Slip Arrives
By JULIE BOSMAN
March 29, 2009
A man who had been laid off from a factory said he managed to find work at Mets games, but for less pay, $9 an hour. Another man, on the verge of eviction, begged for a break from his $315 monthly payments.
“Last week was my child’s birthday, and I couldn’t get him a present,” he said, burying his head in his hands. “This is killing me.”
Since January, Family Court in New York has been filled with urgent requests like these, alarming judges and overwhelming calendars with what are known as modification cases.
Similar patterns are unfolding across the country: In Clark County, Nev., which includes Las Vegas, the district attorney’s family support division has received an unusually high number of calls from parents who previously paid diligently but are now having trouble.
The child-support office in Milwaukee saw a 20 percent spike in the number of custodial parents seeking enforcement of support orders last year, with most of the increase coming in the fall as the unemployment rate there began to creep upward.
To explain why they can no longer pay as much per month, the parents, typically fathers, cite layoffs, cutbacks in work hours and the loss of homes to foreclosure. Presented with documentation of falling incomes and rising expenses, judges often have little choice but to grant the downward adjustments, even in the face of protests from mothers struggling to support children.
Magistrate Matthew Troy, a stocky, gregarious man with a white horseshoe mustache who is one of 15 judges hearing such cases in Manhattan Family Court, said the decisions can be brutal. “It’s not a trickle down — it’s a direct route,” he said of the effects, especially in poor families. “Everybody who relies on the father gets hit.”
The reductions force some families to apply for welfare for the first time, while others become increasingly dependent on food stamps or risk eviction when they come up short on rent.
“In many cases, it’s devastating,” said C. A. Watts, the director of the district attorney’s family support division for Clark County. “Some of the parents absolutely depend on that money coming in. It’s a domino effect. The custodians need the money to feed and clothe the children. If the money stops, it puts a burden on the custodial parent, and they have to come up with funds another way. They’re not going to let their children starve.” Full Story:
