Hurting dads, hurting kids

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2012-10-31 01:00

Article here. Excerpt:

'In Baltimore, the collection of child support has been outsourced to a private, for-profit company, a subsidiary of Maximus Corp., whose website lauds its ability to "improve collections." This incentivizes a zero-tolerance approach to child-support enforcement, despite research indicating that certain well-defined arrearages will never be collected. In addition, the hidden cost of this merciless and relentless collection process on the underclass of Baltimore is rarely discussed. It results in substantial detriment to young men's lives and thwarts their participation in the formal labor force.

Let's start with wage garnishment. If you owe more than 12 weeks' worth of child support, you can have up to 65 percent of your take-home wages garnished. Let's say you manage to get a job making $10 an hour. This could leave you with as little as $3.50 an hour to pay for rent, utilities, transportation, food and clothing, not to mention caring for your kids.

Being more than 60 days in arrears also allows the state to garnish your bank assets — so forget about having a bank account. The state can take liens on your personal and real property, if you have any. And Maryland will not only suspend your driver's license but prevent you from holding any professional license in the state.

Even bankruptcy will not remove or restructure child-support debt. If you file income taxes, Maryland will intercept them. How do you get ahead?

If you're a single man in your 20s, with an eighth grade education and two young children who need food and clothing — and your only meaningful work experience happens to be selling drugs — then your options narrow quickly to that which got you locked up in the first place.

Today, in just five West Baltimore ZIP Codes, there is more than $37 million in child support arrears that will likely never be collected, but have been outsourced to Maximus. So, the collection process will continue unabated, and its socioeconomic impacts will continue to prevent young men from joining the formal economy, literally for the rest of their lives.

In this way, the child-support system actively perpetuates the drug trade. This makes no sense. I think we can do a lot better.'

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Comments

I don't know how this can be. I thought all states have a policy about calculating the parent's "disposable income" and only taking from that. I know mothers that get only $25 a month even though the father makes a fair monthly salary. Mothers have been told CS can't come from the father's food, shelter, and basics.

Most states I have seen have the maximum CS garnishment set anywhere from 50% to 65% of disposable income.

Here is one example:

Illinois uses the federal limits set forth under the Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA). Federal law limits what can be taken from your paycheck for this type of wage garnishment. Up to 50% of your disposable earnings may be garnished to pay child support if you are currently supporting a spouse or a child who isn't the subject of the order. If you are not supporting a spouse or child, up to 60% of your earnings may be taken. An additional five percent may be garnished for support payments over 12 weeks in arrears.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/illinois-wage-garnishment-law.html

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Submitted by Kris on Wed, 2012-10-31 19:53

Hers is what I found regarding Maryland CS garnishments:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8633827_maryland-garnishment-rules-multiple-garnishments.html

It also says it is calculated from disposable income. Perhaps the writer of this article has overlooked this point. I don't think a guy making $10/hr would have much or any disposable income, therfore very little or none would be garnished.

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Submitted by Kris on Wed, 2012-10-31 20:11

you would think this would be the case but let me tell you a few things about collections

1 they lie
2 they will take everything out of any bank account you have and hold it against "future arrears"(cash all your checks and make them a separate account to receive from)
3 usually the laws for poverty level only apply if you arnt in arrears,,if you are then they fly out the window for what your allowed to make/keep to feed yourself...
4 if they arnt allowed to do something(take more than what they are allowed to take a month) they will threaten you with the powers they have "discretion" to use at any time to get you to pay more anyways and then they say its "voluntary"(because if you didnt pay they would of pulled your drivers license or trades ticket)
5 the liens they talk about ruin your credit and mark you as a risk because collections reports every month how much child support you owe and it never decreases because they tab any extra you pay onto the end of your payments or mark it as "future arrears"(i kept receipts and when they claimed they "lost" the extra i was paying i had something to prove i had payed(DO THIS)))

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Submitted by Rog on Wed, 2012-10-31 23:57