Child Support Debt

Rule could leave child-support debtors no income, By Daniel Wagner (AP), February 27, 2012, Detroit News: ” Old child support debts could cost thousands of poor men their only income next year because of a policy aimed at reducing the cost to the government of mailing paper checks to pay federal benefits. The Treasury Department will start paying benefits electronically next March. It will stop issuing the paper checks that many people rely on to safeguard a portion of their benefits from states trying to collect back child support. States can freeze the bank accounts of people who owe child support. A separate Treasury Department rule, in place since last May in a preliminary form, guarantees them the power to freeze Social Security, disability and veterans’ benefits that have been deposited into those accounts. Once paper checks are eliminated, about 275,000 people could lose access to all of their income, advocates say…”