A bill, SB 252 (HB 500), was just introduced in Maryland to increase child support obligations for households at most income levels – a massive 29% increase for a couple (with one child) making $3400 a month! Maryland residents, already burdened by state tax increases, now face additional burdens.
I don't live in Maryland, and I'm not divorced, so I won't be affected by the bill. But as a lawyer who has studied most states' child support guidelines, I find the economic ignorance behind the bill infuriating.
The bill is based on the bogus rationale that child support awards must go up, because inflation has increased child-rearing costs over the years. But under Maryland's existing child support guidelines, awards are based on income -- the more you make, the more you pay! So when incomes and prices rise due to inflation, so, too, do child support payments. The guidelines thus contain a built-in inflation adjustment.
Yet some Maryland officials apparently do not grasp basic economics, arguing to the Washington Post that “today’s child support levels" are too low because they "are based on the economic realities of 1988, when a gallon of gas cost $1.08 and a first-class stamp was 22 cents.”
Wrong. Child support levels are based on what payors earn now, not what they earned in 1988 – when incomes in dollars were much lower. As Murray Steinberg, a former member of Virginia’s child-support review panel, noted, wages have gone up faster than inflation since 1988, meaning that child support levels have risen along with inflation, rather than being eroded by it. (Steinberg cited publicly-available wage and inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) proving this. See, e.g., BLS, Employment Cost Index, Constant Dollar, June 1989=100 (April 29, 2005)). The BLS data shows that wages were substantially lower in real, inflation-adjusted terms in 1988 and 1989 than in more recent years. See, e.g., BLS, Employment Cost Index, Constant Dollar, December 2005=100, available at http://www.bls.gov/web/ecconst.pdf. (I used to work at the BLS producing federal labor cost and living cost data.)
The same false argument was unsuccessfully made in Virginia. But its legislature wisely rejected it, and voted down a failed rewrite of Virginia’s guidelines based on this theory in 2006, rejecting a child support increase bill known as HB733.
Moreover, child-rearing costs that rise even faster than inflation – like "health insurance expenses" and "extraordinary medical expenses" – are awarded as statutory “add-ons” on top of the "basic child support" award, in the actual amount they cost, preventing their inflation from eroding the sufficiency of child support levels. See Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 1A, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers” (available at http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid08av.pdf) (showing that medical inflation massively outstrips inflation in general). This offsets the fact that payments under the "basic child support obligation" schedule rise at a diminishing rate relative to income as income rises. Moreover, expenses covered only by the basic child support schedule -- like kids' clothes (kids go through clothes faster than adults do) -- have mostly risen much slower than the general inflation rate, as the BLS data for categories such as "apparel", "footwear", and "infants' and toddlers' apparel" show. (see http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid08av.pdf).
Maryland’s guidelines are not inadequate. They greatly exceed the true cost of raising children, and amount actually spent on raising children, for the vast majority of households making above $30,000 a year (and also for those households making less than $30,000 a year in which there are substantial court-ordered daycare payments awarded pursuant to Md. Code Section
12-204(g)). Indeed, Maryland's guidelines were historically above average for the nation, although that edge may have dissipated in recent years as some other states have jacked up their guidelines. (See, e.g., Ronald K. Henry, Child Support At A Crossroads: When the Real World Intrudes Upon Academics and Advocates, 33 Family Law Quarterly 235, 241 fn. 20 (1999) (lawyer notes that Maryland child support levels were above the national average, citing the example of a child support obligor with an income of $1000 per month)).
The bill would increase child support obligations so much that working-class fathers would end up paying more in child support than much wealthier families actually spend on their children. I am a lawyer, and my wife is an accountant by occupation. But we spend less on our daughter than the proposed child support guidelines would require many working-class non-custodial parents with much lower incomes to spend. Households with a monthly income of $3400 have a higher "basic child support" obligation under the bill -- not counting statutory add-ons -- than I and my wife actually spend on our daughter, who has plenty of toys, games, food, and clothing. (And that's true even if our child-care costs are estimated at the maximum reasonable amount, such as by attributing to our daughter a per capita share of the amortized cost of our cars.)
(Ironically, the bill, while increasing child support payments at most income levels, would actually cut them for certain very low-income households, where child support payments actually come closest to matching child-rearing costs. It increases the guidelines where they are most excessive now, and cuts them where they are least excessive. "'We're reducing at the low end where it's needed the most,' said Del. Benjamin F. Kramer." While I do not think that Maryland's existing child support levels are too low even at the "low end," and would not object to a modest reduction there, it is odd to cut them only at the very low end while increasing child support awards everywhere else, even where existing awards grossly exceed the actual amounts actually spent on raising children by typical parents at that income level).
State child support agencies like to boast of increased child support collections. There are two ways for them to do that. The easy way is to increase child support guidelines to jack up the payments imposed on law-abiding people who already pay their child support in full. The hard way to do it is to make people who don’t pay what they owe now (many of whom are poor and have difficulty paying) finally pay up to support their children. Maryland officials seem to have chosen the easy way out, at the expense of their citizens, and economic reality.
Previously, I wrote about a bill in Virginia, which will probably die, to sock divorced parents with discriminatory burdens. Earlier, I discussed how divorce law increasingly harms veterans and small businesses, and the peculiar economics of divorce.
ADDENDUM, APRIL 3, 2010:
My commentary above may actually understate the flaws in the child support increase bill, as commenter Dave notes below. The bill will perversely increase payments for those low-income fathers whose payments are LEAST needed, while cutting them for a few low-income fathers whose payments are MOST needed by their children.
In the commentary above, I suggested that the bill would cut payments for very low-income fathers. That's true for some fathers, whose payments would largely be eliminated. But as Dave notes, there are many more dirt-poor fathers who cannot afford any increase whose payments would go up.
Here are some examples: If a poor father makes $800 a month and the mother makes $2600, resulting in a combined income of $3400 a month, the basic child support amount for one kid goes up from $486 per month under current law to $629 under the bill - an increase of 29 percent -- even though the father paying the child suppport is dead broke and the mother has substantial income. That may leave the father so utterly destitute that he has no place to stay in with his kids during visitation. By contrast, if the mother makes no money at all, but the father makes $1200 a month, the child support actually goes down from $226 per month now (for one kid) to between $20 and $150 under the bill -- even though the mother has no income and the father's payment is thus badly needed by the mother and child.
Dave's point about the bill harming, rather than helping, some dirt-poor non-custodial parents, was not entirely new to me. In fact, I had begun to realize it before his comment, and made a similar point a few days ago in a discussion with an advocate for indigent parents. But Dave's comment convinces me both that this issue is not a minor point, and that some readers may have taken away an erroneous impression of the bill's affect on the poor from my commentary. So I am posting this addendum addressing this flaw of the bill (and have passed along the gist of it to a legislator who reputedly has a taken an interest in the past in how child support legislation affects indigent parents).
Comments
There is another way child support guidelines are sometimes excessive: failure to adjust for statutory add-ons like daycare. In real life, if a family spends lots on daycare, it will have to spend less on everything else (a crowd-out effect); all other spending must be cut, including spending on the kid. But under child support guidelines, add-ons like daycare expenses are awarded on top of the “basic child support” amount, without recognizing that such an award will reduce the money left over for other spending, or adjusting the total award for "crowd-out." That can result in payments devouring most of a father’s after-tax income. See Herring v. Herring, 531 S.E.2d 923 (2000) (appeals court increased award from 40% to around 50% of pre-tax income; of the $1498 total monthly child support, 55% was daycare, etc., and 45% ($675) was "basic child support"). While some supplemental award for such expenses is appropriate, the overall award should be adjusted for the "crowd-out" effect.
Men should be very careful and avoid getting married and having families unless they are absolutely sure about their partners.
Your state government will be in bed with you every minute of your marriage and will be hounding you every second after you are divorced.
The same awful bill now has been introduced in the Maryland House of Delegates as HB 500.
I prefer to just never marry a immature western woman. The US is useless today...
Guys! Do not get married. Do not Procreate. Do not cohabitate.
Don't give the $y$tem what it needs to $urvive....You!
Step back, drop out and let them and their beloved anti-male family courts, divorce courts and Domestic Violence industry die a miserable death.
Some of the comments below are off the wall. Is celibacy really a sensible answer to child support payments being too high? Maybe these guys should get off their duffs and write their legislators if they think child support levels are too high, rather than whining about women (the legislators who passed these guidelines were mostly men, not women. Don't blame women).
Personally, I made the decision to never marry or have kids in the US, a long time ago.
My decision was based on seeing my friends being divorced, watching the media create a climate of male-bashing, and understanding that the worst was yet to come (when a class of people is vilified and hated, civil rights abuses are sure to follow).
It looks like I made the right decision!
Evernyone should be fighting that bill. It's obviously flawed in logic and reason OR it's purposily being put forward by people of very poor ethics.
great article btw, keep up the good work.
Great Article! Unfortunately, debating the rationale of this bill with facts is pointless. We all know that every child Support Agency recieves funding based on the amount of money that is funnelled through it. This bill has nothing to do with inflation, or children's welfare. It's all about increasing funding to the Child Support Agency of this state. Still, great article.
I'm sorry but you clearly know nothing about the cost of raising kids and trying to maintain a household in the DC area. I ilve in a rental. 3 kids. Husband makes $115, I make $70. The state mandated support is approx $2200 for us. That doesn't even pay my rent.
Mistake
My sister's husband makes $145K
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Bader is right that Maryland child support payments will be too high thanks to this bill -- higher than all but a few states like Massachusetts.
Well, mostly right. He's right to say it will increase excessive obligations for most parents, but when he says it reduces at the "low end" for very low-income parents, I don't know what parents he's referring to. Even parents who are poorer than dirt have their payments go up, not down, under this bill. Let's say mom and dad each make $800 a month -- less than minimum wage -- for a combined total of $1600 a month. For this household, child support payments go up from a minimum of $282 to a minimum of $327 -- an increase of 16 percent. How is the non-custodial parent going to afford that? Are we going to bring back debtors prison in a big way? There are already a lot of poor black men in jail because they can't afford to pay their child support and were held in contempt.
Good point, Dave. I've added an addendum to my commentary above based on your point about how the bill adversely affects the poor. It turns out that the child support increase bill is even worse than I thought, and even more arbitrary. I hope my commentary didn't inadvertently mislead other readers about how it affects poor non-custodial parents.
My wife split and left me with all the debts. Quits jobs and "goes to school" for a masters degree. My daughter's day care is $800.00/mo and she's three so her food expenses have gone down as she has gotten older. They live with my wife's mother and pays no rent, yet I am stuck paying the bills and got sacked with $1016.00/mo in child support. I make $50,000/year, That 25% of my annual income. The debts are another 18% and then the taxes are taken out first. My friend took me in because I can not afford to pay rent anywhere in the DC area. But you know what they say about a houseguest who stays too long. What does Montgomery county expect me to do when he says enough? Be homeless? Live at the Y? Then where do I take my daughter for visits? There is NO WAY that the expenses for my Three year old are $2032/ month.
In addition...I scrape together enough each month to pay for the monthly 8 hour round trip to and from Trenton, NJ to pick her up for just one weekend each month. Which ends up being just a Saturday because Friday night and Sunday are all spent travelling.
All totalled, the expenses for my daughter each month are $1016 for child support 3-4 tanks of gas at about $40.00/tank Food and recreation expenses, and new clothes that I keep on hand for her in her room plus the random "Daddy can I have..." is over $1,200.00 dollars per month. And if the weather is bad on the visit weekend, her mother "reschedules" the visit for the next month.
This increase will cripple my already hobbling finances. If they do it I guess I will have to "go back to school too."
Does this bill assume that the non-working custodial parent will be at home taking care of the child and thus reducing the child care expense?
Jane does make one good point. How many guys went to Annapolis to testify against the bill--or even called your rep. to express your opposition? Most other states have gone to a presumption of joint custody when a couple splits. MD is one of the last ones that still encourages couples(women) to fight it out. It will only change when enough men say enough, loudly enough.
While my son was in Afghanistan his ex-girfriend decided to take his two daughters back to her home state of Maryland. He is being hit with 1,600 a month child support. They have added on the father pays for day care. This leaves him a mere 250.00 a week to live on. He has them during the summer and he still has to pay while they are in his care. This is un belief. since when does it cost so much to raise a kid. I thought the mothe is obligated for half. This is destroying my son. He loves his kids and wants to care for them. But this is rediculous. A man that has given so much is having everything taken away. Theres no justice in tis.
It's tough being a father with an eight year old especially only being able to spend a month in the summer and every other weekend. The system is flawed, politicians are crooks, and our society has dropped it's guard on morality and no one cares until they become the next victim being judged unequal.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!