Ohio’s child support system rife with fraud, poor collection rates, By Laura A. Bischoff, October 5, 2017, Dayton Daily News: “Ohio’s child support system is riddled with problems, including billions in unpaid support and an outdated formula that some believe contributes to non-custodial parents moving to the underground economy to avoid wage garnishments. Unpaid support on the books, accumulated since 1976, totals a staggering $4.5 billion in Ohio and every year another $100 million piles onto that figure, according to David Fleischman, bureau chief in the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services child support office. Complicating collections is that 69 percent of the debt is owed by parents who had reported earnings of less than $10,000, according to Susan Brown, director of the Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency…”
Tag: Single parents
Child Support and Custody for Unmarried Parents
Involving dads in the lives of children born out of wedlock, By Sarah Breitenbach, September 29, 2016, Stateline: “When an unmarried couple with children breaks up, it is often a matter of packing boxes, divvying up property, and maybe getting an order for child support from a local court. Unlike a divorcing couple, their split is not typically guided by legal standards that dictate how much money they owe each other, or how much time they get to spend with their kids once they separate. And, particularly for unmarried fathers, that lack of legal oversight can mean a long fight for custody of their children. States are starting to more closely examine custody arrangements for children born out of marriage, which have traditionally favored mothers, either by law or default, to give fathers a greater role in raising their children. Studies indicate that consistent paternal involvement can result in more child-support payments, and better mental health and academic results for the children…”
Child Support Enforcement
- Not just a deadbeat dad, By Dwyer Gunn, July 12, 2016, Pacific Standard: “On a sunny Tuesday morning in February, Lewis Griffin walked into a meeting room in the Arapahoe County Human Services Building in Aurora, Colorado. Griffin, a barber and ex-convict who’s also the co-facilitator of a fatherhood class, is a tall black man with closely cropped silvering hair — on the day I met him, he was sharply dressed in grey jeans, a neatly pressed grey-striped button-down shirt, and sleek, modern glasses. Griffin has an open, friendly manner and a disarming sense of humor. When he introduced himself to me, he clasped both hands to his chest, inhaled sharply, and said with exaggerated anxiety, ‘I’m nervous!’ The men (and one woman) gathered in the meeting room that morning all had one thing in common: They were non-custodial parents who had fallen behind on their child support payments…”
- Wisconsin’s grand child support experiment, By Dwyer Gunn, July 13, 2016, Pacific Standard: “In 1997, the state of Wisconsin decided to experiment with the way it handled child support payments made to welfare recipients. In previous years, under the Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) program, recipients who also received child support payments from a non-custodial parent were required to relinquish the bulk of what they received in child support to the state — states only ‘passed through’ the first $50 of child support in a given month. The federal welfare-reform bill (formally known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) of the previous year gave states room to experiment with and set their own policies…”