The US Gov. Says It Costs $1,340 a Month for High-Income Families to Raise a Child–Why Are Some Men Paying 20 Times That?
According to the latest U.S. Government estimates, the average family in the highest income bracket (average income–$112,000 per year) spends $1,340 a month to raise each child. Yet some men are paying 20 times that much a month in child support.
Most of this money is not going to the child, but instead to finance a wealthy lifestyle for the custodial parent. That’s not the purpose of child support, which is supposed to be for the child.
To learn more about the cost of raising a child, see “Table 1. Estimated annual expenditures on a child by husband-wife families, overall United States, 2006″ on page 18 (page 26 on the PDF) of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Expenditures on Children by Families, 2006.
(Note: because it is more economically efficient to raise a child in a two-parent family than in two separate families, there are extra costs incurred by both the custodial and noncustodial parents when the mother and father are divorced or separated.)
[Families Against Confiscatory Child Support is the national voice for fair and reasonable child support. To learn more, go to www.faccsonline.org or contact them at contact@faccsonline.org.]
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October 2nd, 2007 at 11:42 am
Hi Glenn,
This is a great post. I’ve been asking the same question. But it all boils down to two basic things:
1.) The courts have huge discretion
2.) The childs right to a particular standard of living
The courts use number 2 (figuritively and literally) to make huge support ‘awards.’ We all know this is hogwash but the liberal extremes believe that this is correct – the non-custodial parent should be supporting the life-style.
The interesting thing is that the life-style maintenance arguement has a serious case of scope creep – it started as a small precident to protect children that were already living a particular standard of living and now it is being used for out of wedlock situations where there has been no standard of living established. The courts claim “The standard of living the child WOULD have enjoyed had the relationship remained intact.”
Give me a break – what an absolute mess. I am really curious why this number can not be used in court cases. Perhaps someone has an opnion on this.
Also – we know the child support laws are hogwash but why can’t we change it?
What happened to Baskerville’s Book? Angelo’s support movie? Etc Etc.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:50 pm
My understand is that alimony is tax deductable (for the person paying it… it is considered income for the person getting it) and that child support is not tax deductable (it is consided money that is spent to raise the children). What we see here is effectively alimony being re-classified as child support so the woman gets the maximum benefit of the money the man has to pay.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
That amount is a crock. I calculated approximately what I pay monthly for my 3 year old son:
$390 Daycare
$60 Diapers
$200 Food
$50 Clothes
$25 Toys & Books
$50 Transportation
That’s $775/month for him. For my 9 year old daughter, just subtract the daycare and diapers for $325/month. That’s for 100% of their care. I pay far more than that each month to my daughter’s mother, and I have 50% custody of my daughter! I don’t include things like shelter, vehicles, utilities, etc., because those are costs that would be incurred whether or not the kids were there. To me, that is HER responsibility as an adult. If she can’t afford it, the courts should tell her to get a 2nd job, just like they say to fathers. Actually, I believe the courts should keep their grimy noses out of parents’ business altogether unless the child’s life is in jeopardy.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Of course, the USDA estimates have always over-estimated child raising costs and child support formulae do too little to factor in the CP’s obligation to financial support and too little to factor in the direct support provided by NCPs while the child is in his care / custody / during “visitation.” Aside from that, wealthier CPs should not have their housing and transporation subsidized by x-husbands.
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Tutorials in Child Support Decision Theory
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5910/CS_Project/index.htm
October 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Lenore Weitzman published her research findings in the book “The Divorce Revolution in 1985, three years before, the then Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke formed the Australian Child Support Agency in 1988. At the time Weitzman published her erroneous findings, they were reported with gusto by Australia’s media.
Christopher Rapp exposes Lenore Weitzman in “Lies, Damned Lies, and Lenore Weitzman.” For about a decade researchers were denied access to her research data, when they finally gained access to her data. Her research was found to wrong. Yet by this time Weitzman’s findings had been accepted as fact, that following divorce a woman’s standard of living fell by 73%, whilst a man’s standard of living rose by 42%. This helped reinforce the urban myth that men were better off following divorce.
“A large number of people, including most feminists, cited the statistic as proof that child support levels needed to be raised in order to equalize post-divorce standards of living, an argument which, according to Maggie Gallagher, author of The Abolition of Marriage, carried significant weight in the press. “I think the reason [the 73/42 statistic] played so broadly was that it was part of this big push to say that there is an easy solution: ‘we should increase child support.’” Christopher Rapp.
Melaine Phillips in her book ‘the sex change society’ wrote how the best interest of the child was used in order to shift
“The goal of these authors remained the redistribution of labour and wealth within the family, from men to women. Yet they conceded they had to do so without alienating the majority of people by attitudes that appeared to be hostile to men. The way they would do this would be to emphasise the interests of the children.” ‘The Sex Change Society, Feminized Britain and the Neutered Male’ Melaine Phillips P.123
October 2nd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
as i have said before. this is a designed system doing exactly what it was designed to do:
1. the so called contract is negated, for any reason, or no reason – take the kids into custody
2. use the “best interest” argument to take all property, money, savings, retirement, unlimited CS, alimony and if a lot of income is involved, permanent alimony, and give it all to the woman (except for the lawyer’s considerable cut)
3. set the CS so high as to increase the odds of default – no ceiling on amount, turns the man into an unlimited paycheck (bonded servant)
4. arrest the deadbeat and rob him again- debtor’s prison, just calling it something else
5. lend insult to injury by not allowing the man to see his children (happens every day)
after all – it really is all about getting the man to pay, and pay, and pay, ….
yep, a well designed system doing exactly what it was designed to do.
October 3rd, 2007 at 6:38 am
This is such a huge sham – why don’t we have more activists trying to change it? That’s what I really don’t understand. Seems the populatino just doesn’t care, until they end knee deep in the muck and mire.
The big question is how do we mobilize the correct forces to bring about change. A state by State Campaign? A national Campaign?
A new moto: “For your children, help correct this country’s child support system – don’t let it financially rape your children when they become adults”
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Why are we rehashing this issue without someone acknowledging that the legislature doesn’t set child support guidelines as I pointed to in Glen’s last post on child support.
For years Roger Gay and others at CRC have offered an appropriate model for the economist and judicial committee members to apply. Those wishing to contact there state commissions and offer to present Roger’s Model will effect change and those that complain will accomplish nothing.
I’m sure Roger can supply anyone interested (with an IQ of 130 or greater) the way to appropriate change. Those with IQ less should simply support the few with a well reasoned mathematical model and keep quiet.
October 4th, 2007 at 9:23 am
For years Roger Gay and others at CRC have offered an appropriate model for the economist and judicial committee members to apply.
The reason the model is inappropriate is because it attempts to apply an equitable solution to an administrative problem, just as confused legislators and jurists have attempted to do for years. This may just be a better way to do the wrong thing. If you understand the reasoning and limitations of alimony, you should have no trouble identifying the problem with this approach. The child support program under the social security act is not meant to provide a child with the means to live as if the parents were not divorced, as is the equitable award of alimony (for cause). The program is to recover or avoid the expenditure of public assistance.
From an earlier post:
The obligation to pay child support is directly connected to the obligation a state may have in supporting a child who has been abandoned by a responsible parent. The state obligation (potential public assistance payment) is the only amount the state has an interest in collecting. Anything beyond it is an invasion of privacy.
Any order for child support without necessary findings of abandonment and need should be objected to on jurisdictional grounds. So-called guidelines statutes that fail to use the state obligation or potential obligation as a basis is unconstitutional. The cost to raise a child has nothing to do with setting an obligor’s “contribution.” That is considered in the calculation of the state obligation (the public assistance payment.)
The scam is an attempt to carry a morphed concept of alimony into a no-fault divorce system. Alimony is a fault based award. When a women leaves a home her husband has provided for her (their household, no matter how they split the expenses) she is entitled to nothing. Her entitlement is tied to fault. A no-fault dissolution action requires a finding of fault to make alimony (now called maintenance) or child support an issue. The obligation of a father to support his children has nothing to do with the legal obligation to provide child support because the term “child support” is a term of art as it is used in title IV-D of the Social Security Act, and in state legislation enacted in response to it. The state’s power dosn’t come from the federal act. It comes from their dubious claim under the doctrine of parens patriae. This doctrine does not give the states power to compel self-sufficient families to do anything. It offers protection to families in need of state protection.
Until leaders in this marriage/fathers movement get a handle on the limitations inherent in the states use of its parens patriae power, and understand the inalienable right affected by its over-reach (natural guardianship), there is really nothing that’s going to get fixed. You can demand that laws regarding the placement of state wards get tweaked all you want (equal rights, lower support). Like the Maryland Court of Appeals recently concluded, you can’t redefine marriage for the purpose of protecting an imaginary right.
Those intent on presenting Roger’s Model will be responsible for fixing nothing.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Excuse me. Nothing in relation to the bigger problem with an unlawful government intrusion into family government.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Lloyd: I’m sure Roger can supply anyone interested (with an IQ of 130 or greater) the way to appropriate change.
OK — having a high IQ helps. The main trick however, is the marriage of principled logic and math. Based (at least loosely) on constitutional requirements (which in effect meant child support awards could only be for the purpose of financially supporting children, all relevant factors must be considered, etc.) courts evolved the basic logical foundation that’s needed; ye old needs of children and relative ability to pay standard — just like it says in Georgia v. Sweat et al., as well as laws and court decisions in states throughout the country prior to 1991.
Guideline math however, before PICSLT looked like it had been developed by people with law degrees with maybe a social scientist or two kicking in a little something on the side. I don’t mean to knock economists, but I was appalled with all the “economic studies” done in support of the new “guideline science” (fake pseudo-science as we all know). The field of economics never had a solution to the child support award problem, just as lawyers never quite figured out the math correctly.
Perhaps more than just a high IQ, I spent a lot of time mulling over traditional law (the naturally evolved stuff prior to 1991) so that I could put that together properly with mathematical modeling. Without seeing both sides, there’s no chance of solving the problem. In my paper on child support principles, I do some review and then attempt to explain why needs of children and relative ability to pay can be considered the only reasonable principles possible — i.e. a scientific conclusion about what the principles need to be.
It then took finding the right trick to solve the math problem.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:27 am
right2parent: The reason the model is inappropriate is because it attempts to apply an equitable solution to an administrative problem, …
I’ve read your comments in this regard for years, but can never follow your reasoning past the first few lines. I think you have a fix on an important problem, but then it seems like you attempt to apply one thought about the problem too broadly – basically to everything.
I would agree that 1) the federal government doesn’t belong in the divorce business, and 2) administrative (??? – I’m guessing a bit about what you mean) proceedures are inappropriate outside of welfare entitlement related cases. But I also believe that the same principles should apply in welfare cases as in non-welfare cases — i.e. the only appropriate ones: needs of children and relative ability to pay.
How that leads to a claim that getting child support decisions to a reasonable level is useless is beyond me, I guess. If you tone it down instead – letting us know that we should be trying to restore constitutional order; I’d be with you on this. I’m not really sure why you see my child support math as competition to that idea. Just the opposite in my opinion – getting courts to recognize that arbitrarily high “child support” awards are unconstitutional (thinking real science can go a long way to help make the point) ———– then the incentives people have for supporting the current system will diminish very quickly –> result: the political problem will not be as difficult as before.
October 5th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Theory Confirmed: My work on child support decision theory (CSDT) is accurately characterized as theory in my opinion. I don’t think competing ideas about child support guidelines from the collection industry are on that level. Confirmation of the theory comes from results.
The idea in all cases has to do with impact on standard-of-living. Collection industry guidelines are based on a wild theory related to some statistical meanderings – such as the “food shares” method blah blah; none of which makes any real sense unless you’ve got hundreds of billions of dollars and are just trying to assure that poor people get enough from a give-away program (maybe).
What happens when CSDT is applied is that you see the proper balance in standard of living as a result of the CS transfer — you just don’t get that from current guidelines. There have been some Australian studies that have done a particularly good job of demonstrating that results of current guidelines don’t make sense, as well as analysis by Braver et al. Subject CSDT to the same analysis (I have). Results are “appropriate.”
October 7th, 2007 at 6:42 am
There are a couple of strange things about working on child support decision theory, having mostly to do with the seed of the theory itself. The needs of children and ability to pay standard most certainly arose from common sense and existed before any attempt at deriving a mathematically rigorous theory. The practical need for more scientific rigor is the result of political activities – i.e. federal reforms accompanied by false claims regarding a scientific basis for current guidelines. That created a situation where rigorous analysis and confirmable theory was needed to prove what was already (at least in a general way) well understood through the application of common sense and objective judgment.
All this can make scientific work that does not produce a new (generally speaking) result seem rather trivial. Worse yet, since the body of work produced in support of current guidelines is politically / economically motivated rather than scientific, there is no mainstream scientific process in which a science of child support decision making – child support decision theory – can emerge.
It’s really quite odd that such work can be viewed as a competing idea about how the politics of child support should be played; but that’s a result of the fact that most governmentally funded work – the work that drives all this – is not real scientific work. It’s politics. It’s fake. It’s a new phase; an extreme in false statistics supporting odd and extreme political views. That type of dishonest approach to politics has gone from rhetoric – merely trying to convince – to dictatorial by forcing creation of court orders that use nonsensical statistical analysis directly.
October 7th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Roger,
“I also believe that the same principles should apply in welfare cases as in non-welfare cases — i.e. the only appropriate ones: needs of children and relative ability to pay.”
You missed the first required finding of fact, which is whether the children are “needy.” That’s what gives the state jurisdiction to intervene. Ability to pay only relates to the obligation that stems from a potential public assistance payment.
“…arbitrarily high “child support” awards are unconstitutional.”
They are not just arbitrarily high. They are arbitrary, as they are not applied to the government obligation to support the “dependent children” which is the subject of the law.
“What happens when CSDT is applied is that you see the proper balance in standard of living as a result of the CS transfer…”
A ballance in the standard of living is not the purpose of the program (documented in the act itself). The purpose is to recover or avoid the expenditure of public assistance. Arbitrary income redistribution is what you get when you loose site of teh object of the child support award, whether you try to make the income redistribution plan more fair or not. The plan is simply not supported by the state’s parens patriae power.
“…the body of work produced in support of current guidelines is politically / economically motivated…”
Of course it is. It has nothing to do with the cost to raise a child. It has everything to do with the obligation of the state to support a child that a responsible parent had the ability to contribute towards. If a father dosen’t owe alimony (a fault based equitable award), he owes no maintenance to a child taken from him under the no-fault scheme. No fault, no obligation. If a father abandons his children, and the abandonment results in a state obligation to support them, he is held liable for that support under the child support program. Equity has nothing to do with it.
Yes it’s politic, and no, it’s not fake. The state has a right to recover or avoid the cost incurred under their public assistance programs, and the so-called guidelines were originally, and can only be interpreted to be a garnishment statute with special considerations for other parenting contributions that offset the state obligation. It’s administrative in nature because it is based on an actual, measurable obligation of the state. It’s not an equitable award. That’s the problem with trying to make the statutes do something they weren’t intended to do, and which the state has no power to do. The state is not in the wealth redistribution business. That’s called socialism. You’re going the wrong direction on this because you don’t understand the issue of family government sovereignty.
If you are having problems following my reasoning past the first couple of lines, I’d be happy to take it slower. Do you have a problem understanding the purpose of the program, or the limitations of the state’s use of it’s parens patriae power, or the application of that power to this program?
October 8th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Regardless of the fact that we know that alternative FR guidelines such as those suggested by CRC and Mark Rogers are better and fairer (and my work confirms that), it has already been amply demonstrated that they are not effective tools in the political battle.
The thing about current alternative guidelines suggested by the FR movement, is that there is no scientifically certain argument in their support. They are the same guidelines as those currently in use, but with lower numbers in the tables. Mark Rogers’ economic arguments on derivation of cost tables did not win the Sweat case in Georgia, and that judgment was overturned. The opposition based development of guidelines on “economic studies” of costs and higher tables because no real scientific argument can be made based on statistical analysis of national economic data on family spending. That freed them to construct arbitrary conclusions about child rearing costs from such “economic studies.” To attempt to follow the same path in an effort to demonstrate they are wrong is a non-starter. One just falls into the trap that no real scientific conclusion can be drawn, deepening the sense that there is no choice but to make arbitrary judgments about child support amounts.
To further argue against arbitrarily high child support amounts, even in political settings, you need to show that there is a basis for developing guidelines that is not arbitrary, or at least far less arbitrary than what is being done now.
right2parent – I think you’ve not understood my comment regarding balance in standard of living. My guess is that you are thinking about equalization of standard of living, which does not fit the principles that I have said are right. Children do in fact have needs, and it is basic that some of them need to be paid for. The other basic part of the principles addresses your concern – the ability of parents to provide. Regarding contributions by care, see “How to adjust for visitation and shared parenting”
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/cross_text/cross_text.html
In addition, I do not oppose limiting state power in their administrative capacity to the recovery of state expenditure in welfare programs – but I do not believe that will stop custodial parents from private lawsuits for recovery of child support – just as it was before the federal reforms. You should regard the formulae I present as setting an upper limit on child support in such cases. Even in private suits, courts do not have any logical basis for asserting authority to order arbitrarily high amounts.
I’ve been arguing with you about this for years, and don’t get the feeling that you want to accept what I’m saying. But I still do not see what I’m doing and saying as being in competition with what you’re saying. I understand your concerns, but wish you would not associate my mathematical work with the political problems you name. I am certain that my math and its application does not demand continuation of the problems of administration that were swept in by federal reform in 1990. Using proper mathematical logic and theory just means being better at the logic of child support. It does not demand the bizarre recofiguration of government operations that came with the federal reforms we’ve had.
October 8th, 2007 at 2:04 am
right2parent – I think there’s one thing that you should be more aware of. You are not the only person who recognizes the problem that you have been writing about all these years. I for one, consider it to be an extremely important issue – although I tend to write differently about it. I’m not sure if you have read much of what I’ve written over the past 10+ years and if so, whether you see that I’ve expressed similar concerns in a different way.
More than me, however, I think you should recognize how much effort the collection industry put into getting the reforms accepted and embedded into our current systems: not just the faulty guidelines – but getting courts to accept the blatent fact that both federal and state governments now overstep constitutional boundaries of all kinds and arbitrarily manipulate family life. You should recognized that the transformation of our system of government in relation to the government – family relationship has progressed so far that that same-sex marriage is now regarded in some states as being constitutionally mandated.
The problem you focus on is certainly a basic one, and I have not hesitated to discuss it in my own way. (I’ve written a lot, so you can get a better understanding of my views by reading my articles.)