By Rinaldo Del Gallo, III, Esq.

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BerkshireFatherhood.com

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July 22, 2007

This is the third part of a series of stories I am writing on how current child support laws violate basic biblical principles. Today we examine the biblical principle that states one must be fair to the poor.

THE RELEVANT BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES:

“Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Exodus 23:6

“The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.” Proverbs 29:7 

“If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you.” Leviticus 25:35

“If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.” Deuteronomy 15:7

“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

“You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the LORD is their refuge.” Psalm 14:6

“The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright.” Psalm 37:14

“Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.” Psalm 82:3

“He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.” Proverbs 17:5

“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.” Proverbs 21:13.

“Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court.” Proverbs 22:22

Isaiah 10

1 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees, 2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.

What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?

“The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice.” Ezekiel 22:29.

These biblical quotes–numerous as they are–are hardly exhaustive.

Let’s compare these biblical passages to the way things are according to our child support system. Here are some snippets from a Glenn Sacks article:

In reality, much if not most child support enforcement funds are frittered away in misguided attempts to collect artificially inflated paper arrearages from low-income men who couldn’t possibly pay them. Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement data shows that two-thirds of those behind on child support nationwide earned less than $10,000 in the previous year; less than four percent of the overall national child support debt is owed by those earning $40,000 or more a year. According to the largest federally-funded study of divorced dads ever conducted, unemployment, not willful neglect, is the largest cause of failure to pay child support.

The inflated arrearages are created in large part because the child support system is mulishly impervious to the economic realities working-class people face, such as layoffs, wage cuts, unemployment, and work-related injuries. According to the Urban Institute, less than one in 20 non-custodial parents who suffers a substantial drop in income is able to get courts to reduce his or her child support payments. In such cases, the amounts owed mount quickly, as do interest and penalties.

For example, a recent Urban Institute study found that only 25% of California’s $14.4 billion child support arrearage will be collected over the next decade because the support amounts demanded of noncustodial parents are not realistic. The average arrears owed per debtor is $3,000 higher than the median annual earnings of employed child support debtors. Those in the poorest category have a child support debt amounting to their full net income for seven and a half years.

The “Most Wanted Deadbeat Parents” lists put out by most states demonstrate this problem. In the past few months, “deadbeat parents” have been the targets of highly-publicized law enforcement actions in Virginia, Texas, Kentucky, and Arizona. Yet Virginia’s “Most Wanted” list is topped by a laborer, a carnival hired hand, and a construction worker, who collectively somehow owe over a quarter million dollars in child support. Of all the parents on Texas’ and Kentucky’s lists, only one appears to have an education, and the most common designation for occupation is “laborer.” Near the top of Arizona’s list is a maintenance man who owes $90,223, an unemployed man of no known occupation who owes $54,298, and, best of all, a roofer who owes $240,581.

This week Abbott boasted that he had arrested one of the “deadbeats” on his “Most Wanted” list–Charles Silva, who owes almost $40,000 in child support. Yet it’s doubtful that Silva will be writing a five figure check any time soon–Silva’s occupation is “general laborer.” Far from being lists of well-heeled businessmen, lawyers, and accountants, the vast majority of the men on these lists do low wage and often seasonal work, and owe large sums of money which they could never hope to pay off.

Mr. Sacks article was in the vain of these “dads are deadbeat, they are dead broke.” No doubt, this is true. But an equally if not more sinister operation is a-foot. Men are being hit with obscene amounts of child support they cannot possibly pay.

A few years back there was one person in our group (the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition) that was making $1,000 per week. After taxes and child support, he was down to $120 per week. He had lived with his mother to survive. His story was hardly an isolated one.

It is hard to measure the tax burden any one pays with metronomic precision because there are taxes everywhere. In Massachusetts, where I live, there are federal income taxes, state income taxes, local property taxes, a sales tax of 5% (clothing and grocery store food except), excise taxes on cars, and property taxes on non-household items. Most people in Massachusetts part with 33% to 40% of their income when they are done paying all taxes.

Suppose one makes $500 per week or $26,000 per year. Further suppose that the mother decides not to work, and that there are two children. Further suppose that one of the children is over 13. In Massachusetts child support will be set at $141.90—we will round that off to $142. If that person is paying 40% of his income in taxes ($200 per week), after child support ($142 per week), he is making $159 per week, a figure so low that one cannot obviously survive.

Even if we do the numbers with a modest 30% tax rate—unrealistically low—the tax burden would be ($150) plus the child support burden ($142) leaving $208 per week to live on. (This assumes that the father does not have health insurance at his work and that the mother is on Mass. Health.)

Let’s change the facts a little further regarding this Massachusetts situation. Suppose that he has two children, one sixteen and one twenty-one but in college. Suppose that the children are from two different mothers, both of who either do not work or make less than $20,000 per year. Under the guidelines, our $500 per week salaried man will owe $121 per week in child support. As for the second child who came to well the second time, child support is calculated by deducting the first order from his gross pay to calculate a new “gross pay.”

So for calculating child support for his second child, he is considered to have made $500 minus $121 per week (his first child support order), or $379, which we will round off to $380 per week. Under the Massachusetts guidelines, this amounts to child support in the amount of $90 per week. (Yes, even though the mothers are equally situated, one gets much less money.) The father’s total child support obligation then becomes $121 per week plus $90 per week, or $211 per week total. Thus, if he pays 40% of his money in taxes ($200), his tax burden plus child support amount to $411 ($211 for child support plus $200 for taxes), leaving $89 per week to live on. Even using the smaller and much less realistic 30% tax rate (($211 for child support plus $150 for taxes), we have a weekly $361 child support/tax burden or $139 per week to live on after child support and taxes are deducted.

This is not an usual situation. We have a man making $12.50 per hour, hardly an obscenely low wage. He has not been given a red cent in child support that is based upon an “imputed” income—i.e., a totally made up income that a judge who is totally ignorant in economics and the labor market could think he could make.

Imagine the chaos of additional arrearages based upon owing child support while one is unemployed or in jail? Voila, we have a man that makes $1,000 per week and gets a $152 paycheck. Adding to the injustice, the mother may have moved out because she simply wasn’t getting along with dad. Uni-lateral no fault divorce is the rage.

The biblical principles are not only utterly clear—they are repeated abundantly. Thou shall not persecute the poor. And this the current child support system does so promiscuously. Child support levels are far too high. Protecting the public fisc by putting men into dire poverty through exorbitant tax and child support levels violates biblical principles.

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