Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology (PICSLT) was an in-depth exploration into the science of child support calculations. The study began rather informally in 1989, on the eve of implementation of what was then a new federal mandate for use of welfare system style formulae extended to all child support cases in the United States. Although very rigid and presumptively applied, the formulae were referred to as child support “guidelines.”
It was easy to see that the new formulae were not producing reasonable child support amounts. The amounts produced were (and still are) arbitrarily high - and not just a little. With such a large population affected, and the effect being great, one could expect a range of reactions, including some in the extreme - particularly when one considers the context, the naturally emotionally-charged, psychologically traumatizing circumstances of many divorces involving children. News reports quickly followed as judges were shot and men barricaded themselves in houses with hostages. Fathers throwing powder-filled condoms at the British Prime Minister and climbing bridges in Batman costumes protesting custody arrangements are quite reserved by comparison.
Feminist groups – that treat the personal as political – complained that these “terrorists” were receiving undue attention. The issue did not then simply fall off the radar - the mainstream media was drawn into an intense decade-long propaganda campaign in support of the reforms, most remembered by the term “deadbeat dads.” Newspapers still occasionally run promotional articles for “child support enforcement,” the pork-barrel program responsible for creating the formulae and pushing for mandatory use in Congress along with ever-spiraling budget requests. Reports of men being thrown in jail because they were unable to pay (payments ordered could be more than their take-home pay) and suicides of fathers who were left unable to feed themselves were pushed to the fringe. Men who ran became the propagandists’ poster-children to be hunted down by armed police.
In hindsight, it might seem naive that PICSLT began with the view that the problem could be addressed by a technically intense study of child support decision-making. Strong hints were laid in the written material on the new guidelines - principally from Robert Williams, PhD, a child support enforcement entrepreneur, and his promotional firm Policy Studies Inc. The level of competence in the work could have easily led to failure of a sophomore in science or engineering. Could it be that the work was simply dishonest? There was still some room for doubt. Those “scientists” favoring the new guidelines were social scientists whose experience in statistical profiling was a far cry from the serious art and science of technical design. At the very least, they were probably unaware just how obvious their errors were to people with higher levels of competence.
An important impetus for further study was the realization that child support decision-making had never been treated as a scientific subject. This was (and is) of practical importance given the federal mandate and any such work could continue to be of value even if the law is repealed. Prior to its awkward treatment by the collection industry, child support formulae had been developed independently by judges and by lawyers in bar association committees. Collection industry guidelines had been promoted as the first based on “science.” The fact that they were, at best, based on very poor science seemed not to matter so much because they were the first.
Some of the pre-reform traditional work was quite good, but had only been presented as “engineering” work based on requirements of existing laws. Judges of the era opposed rigid use of child support formulae, stating emphatically that the number and complexity of variables requires case-by-case determinations. The term “child support guideline” was accurate then. Deviations from the formulae were common, owing to differences in circumstances not accounted for in the formulae, while they still promoted reasonable uniformity in decisions.
The first technical report from PICSLT was published in April 1990 as an investigation by Intelligent Systems Research Corporation into the nature of the problem and possibilities for addressing it. Within two years, two more detailed technical papers were produced; further characterizing the problem and demonstrating technical flaws in the underlying math and logic of guidelines in use. A concept paper was submitted to the national State Justice Institute and the first public presentation on was given at the Sixth Annual Conference of the National Council for Children’s Rights.
Expert testimony was given in a critical federal case, P.O.P.S v. Gardner. Parents Opposed to Punitive Support was an organization composed of divorced fathers and second families in Washington State whose children were not receiving welfare and were not in any immediate danger of becoming welfare dependent. Consistent with the whole divorce population, the mothers had in most cases initiated the divorce and many had remarried. They argued, among other things, that arbitrarily high child support determinations imposed an unacceptable burden against their own second families.
Experts appearing for the state included Robert Williams, whose design the state had implemented, and Notre Dame economics professor David Betson, who was nationally known for popular child cost estimates and often consulted on state guidelines. The two admitted that their cost estimates - the primary determinate of guideline results - were not based on cost data, but primarily on obscure logic preferred by those doing the estimations. Child support orders determined by the guidelines were / are arbitrary. Williams’ own report pointed out the intent to increase child support orders to two and a half times what they had been under established law.
It can be said that the P.O.P.S. case was decided before it was decided. Evidence above, and that prepared at the request of P.O.P.S., demonstrated guideline results are arbitrary and punitive. They are an arbitrary government intrusion into personal life. This provided a basis for declaring the guidelines unconstitutional. The court however, reclassified marriage and family issues as “social policy,” eliminating the application of basic civil rights tests. Social policy is a classification given to welfare entitlements, which are strictly politically controlled. In making this change, the court protected the new system of federal pork at the expense of civil rights. This reclassification would ultimately lead to the legal destruction of marriage and family as we knew it.
PICSLT’s work continued to June 2001 with a series of technical papers, conference presentations, Congressional testimony, and testimony to state guideline review committees. A second wind was created with a breakthrough that transformed the work from analysis and engineering into basic science. “Just and appropriate,” has been expressed in mathematical terms under the title “Child Support Decision Theory.” Tutorials in Child Support Decision Theory are available on the web.
Roger F. Gay was the principle researcher in Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology and began writing for MensNewsDaily in 2002. He has written numerous articles on the child support issue, published at MND and elsewhere.
