Wyoming committee recalculates low-income child support payments, By Kyle Roerink, January 10, 2013, Casper Star-Tribune: “The state House Judicial Committee passed a bill Thursday that would reduce child support payments for low-income parents in Wyoming. The bill’s intent seems counter-intuitive, but it should bring in more money for children. In many cases, parents obliged to pay child support won’t pay anything if they cannot afford the court-mandated amount, said Brenda Lyttle, child support enforcement director with the Wyoming Department of Family Services. Under the terms of the bill, the amount the parent is ordered to pay may be less, but there’s more of a chance the order will be enforced, she said…”
Tag: Single parents
Inequality and the Family
Economic Inequality and the Changing Family, By Jason DeParle, July 14, 2012, New York Times: “As my article this weekend about two families in Ann Arbor, Mich., points out, the widening in many measures of inequality can be traced in part to changes in marriage patterns, rather than just changes in individual earnings. A number of scholars have looked at the varied dimensions of this thesis — growing inequality, changes in family structure, and the connection between the two. Here is a look at some of their findings. On inequality: An interesting pattern over the last four decades is that inequality has grown much faster for households with children than it has for households over all — an indication that changes in family structure (as opposed to wages and employment alone) have increased inequality. Bruce Western and Tracey Shollenberger of the Harvard sociology department compared households at the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile. In 1970, the top households had 8.9 times the income of the bottom. By 2011 they had nearly 11.7 times as much. . .”
NPR Series on Poverty in America
Poverty in America: The struggle to get ahead, series homepage, By Pam Fessler, July 10, 2012, National Public Radio.