>YF: . . .
>During the welfare "reform" debate, some argued that men owe women a giant
>amount of child support and that many men are neglecting their fair share
>of parental responsibilities (both of which are true for some men, while
>other men may simply have no or little income or are in prison). . . .
>
>[mbs] Underpayment of awarded child support is huge,
>even though the awards themselves are grossly inadequate.
>This is pretty important. The main obstacle to better
>outcomes is the failure of state governments to
>coordinate enforcement, which stems from 'states
>rights' politics (don't go interfering in our
>splendid state judicial system).
>
>My sister-in-law is owed about $40K, not counting ten
>year's worth of interest by her ex. He's in a different
>state. The IRS managed to nail him once by snatching
>his tax refund, but since then nothing. Dealing with
>the state gov of his residence (FL) has been a gross
>exhaustion of time and effort.
Those who can should pay, but I'm talking about poor fathers, who can barely support themselves, may have no income, and might be even incarcerated already. There is a question of efficiency, too. Taking much time & spending much money to try to collect little from poor dads doesn't help poor women & children, does it? Have you studied the ratio of collected child support to tax expenditure in collection enforcement? Have you guys discussed this subject on Femecon? It's a topic in which feminist economists should be interested. And where is an EPI paper on the matter? I suspect that there is no empirical evidence for an argument that collecting delinquent child support is better for poor women & children than public assistance is.
Also, there is a problem of escalating the trend toward increasing criminalization & surveillance of the poor.
***** The Independent (London) July 1, 1999, Thursday SECTION: COMMENT; Pg. 4 HEADLINE: The Left Is Creating a New Scapegoat: 'Deadbeat Dads'; Strip Away the Moral Rhetoric and You Will Find That Finance Is Driving This Issue BYLINE: Helen Wilkinson
IF SINGLE parent mums were the target of the right's moral disapproval for much of this decade, now a new scapegoat is in danger of being created. Deadbeat dads and feckless fathers have begun to exercise the energies of New Labour. Today, after heavy leaks, the Social Security Secretary, Alastair Darling, will unveil Government's plans in its White Paper to criminalise fathers who are delinquent in paying child support. Delinquent payers, we're told, may be banned from driving and, potentially, sent to jail....
Strip away the moral rhetoric though, and you will find that finance is driving the issue. Rising rates of divorce and relationship breakdown have produced more and more lone parents dependent on benefits, and more and more children in poverty. Welfare-to-work in America and the New Deal for lone parents in Britain tackles one half of that equation - by encouraging single-parent mums to get back into work - but child support reform, getting non-resident fathers to pay for their offspring, tackles the other.
The proposals, right down to the language of deadbeat dads itself, have a distinctly American flavour. But the infringements of personal liberty and the tactics chosen by many American states are quite shocking. Massachusetts has led the way, with among other things, the power to revoke driving licences when faced with non-payment of child support. More controversial still, posters adorn the Boston subway with photo identikits asking you if you recognise any of these "criminals". Closer inspection reveals them to be dads delinquent in their payment of child support.
The hard-hitting campaign in Massachusetts has been effective, and child support collections have risen dramatically. Partly as a consequence, other American states have followed their lead, encouraging worthy neighbours, friends and even family "to do the right thing" and snitch on those dads who are not accepting their moral (financial) responsibilities.
There is no doubt that this kind of punitive approach has its virtues. It has certainly worked to shame some dads, predominantly middle class ones, into accepting their responsibilities. Quite right too. But the American approach also has its weaknesses. It can alienate and stigmatise those who are unable to pay, perpetuating vicious cycles of exclusion. Many "deadbeats", as Americans like to call them, are actually poor. More and more research has come to light that it's not so much that they won't pay, as that they can't. Poverty, that unfashionable word in the late Nineties, stands in the way, and posters which name and shame the poor and disenfranchised simply reinforce their sense of exclusion from a society that seems reluctant to accept its moral responsibility to them.... *****
You don't mean to say that poor British & American dads can all go The Full Monty to make money, do you, Max? That only happens in a movie. :)
>>>>>>>>>>
>Neoliberals invoked a feminist-sounding argument: we should make men pay,
>instead of having women & children dependent on the state. I don't think
>this is a progressive argument at this point in history, though. The same
>for household labor, I think. I'd rather *socialize it in a non-gendered
>fashion* (and/or leave it undone to the extent it's possible), rather than
>keep it private and try to divide it equally between genders, as Ehrenreich
>has it. Better Engels than Ehrenreich.
>>>>>>>>
>
>[mbs] Looks like you're to my right on this one,
>feminist-wise. Why should the state subsidize
>irresponsible behavior by men?
Guaranteed public assistance beats being dependent upon individual men, whose incomes are not reliable sources (sometimes because men in question are irresponsible, but often because of unemployment, underemployment, sporadic employment, etc. which are beyond their control). BTW, besides promoting the rhetoric of "personal responsibility," welfare reformists have had an ideological agenda of promoting marriage & women's financial dependence upon individual men, to which feminists -- even liberal feminists -- are opposed:
***** Los Angeles Times November 11, 1999, Thursday, Home Edition SECTION: Part A; Page 1; National Desk HEADLINE: House Votes to Boost Poor by Teaching Fatherhood; Legislation: $160-Million Bill Hopes to Expand on 1996 Welfare Reform bu Prodding Absentee Dads into Marriage. BYLINE: Melissa Healy, Times Staff Writer DATELINE: Washington
The House of Representatives, seeking to reverse decades of surging out-of-wedlock births, on Wednesday approved a $ 160-million effort aimed at boosting marriage among the nation's poor by teaching fathers who are absent from their children's homes to uphold their parental responsibilities.
Urged to "make dads count," lawmakers swept aside objections from the National Organization for Women and civil libertarians and passed the measure on a broadly bipartisan vote of 328 to 93.
Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.), the measure's chief sponsor, called the legislation "a giant step forward" for poor children and their fathers. For the first time, she said, welfare-related legislation "is going to recognize that dads do count and that we can help dads to be better fathers and better providers."
Indeed, the measure marks a significant first step toward achieving a key social goal of the welfare reform law of 1996. Many of that law's chief architects hoped that it would help reestablish the tradition of marriage and two-parent families in the nation's poorest communities, where more than two-thirds of children now are born to single mothers.
But the 1996 law avoided language that enshrined marriage as an explicit objective of programs for the nation's poor. And until recently, virtually all welfare reform programs and money have been used to help wean mothers with dependent children from public assistance. Except for initiatives cracking down on fathers who failed to pay child support, few welfare reform resources or services have gone to fathers who are absent from the home.
The House measure would begin to change that. It would establish an organization to make five-year grants to groups that commit to "promote marriage" as well as "good parenting practices, including the payment of child support" through counseling, mentoring and job training of noncustodial fathers. The grant-making body envisioned by lawmakers would operate separately from the government's welfare system, which many believe has done much to discourage marriage among the poor.
Passage of the "Fathers Count Act" comes at a time of broad political attention to the challenge of drawing absent fathers into their children's lives. Backers of the bill estimate that 23 million children live in homes without fathers, a tripling over the last 40 years. Recent federal figures show that unwed birth rates have dropped in 12 states, including California, although they have gone up elsewhere.
Vice President Al Gore, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, has proposed his own package of aid to encourage marriage, support fathers' involvement with their children and shore up two-parent families working for low wages. President Clinton is expected to sign a version of the House measure into law, although Senate action on similar legislation is not expected until next year.
The fine print of the House measure also contains a provision that could spare California as much as $ 300 million in future federal penalties. Echoing legislation passed earlier this year by the Senate, the House bill would waive further federal penalties on states that fail to meet targets set out by the 1996 welfare reform bill for establishing central systems to handle child support enforcement.
In October 1998, California failed to meet a key target laid out in the law: to establish a single statewide office for the disbursement of child support collections to custodial parents and their children. By the letter of the 1996 law, that failure should mean that stiff federal penalties already incurred by the state would be doubled. By waiving the double-penalty provision of the 1996 law, the House and Senate measures would spare California many hundreds of millions of dollars.
The "Fathers Count" grants would go to state agencies as well as religious and independent social service organizations. The likelihood that many of the grants would be made to "faith-based" organizations drew considerable criticism in Wednesday's floor debate. Several lawmakers warned that, as churches and religious missions use federal funds to do their work, there would be an unconstitutional breach of the firewall between church and state.
But House lawmakers rejected two amendments that would have placed significant restrictions on which religious organizations would be eligible for funds and how a religious group could use them.
"To claim that our Founding Fathers were for separation of church and state is either rewriting history or being very ignorant of history," said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas). "It is simply impossible and it's unwise to try to separate people and their government from religion."
Wednesday's measure had the backing of groups across a wide range of the political spectrum. Along with the broad backing of the House Republican leadership, it won endorsements from such liberal-leaning groups as the Children's Defense Fund and the Center for Policy and Budget Priorities in Washington.
But one notable voice of dissent came from the National Organization for Women, which argued that giving money to programs for noncustodial fathers would undermine support for custodial parents, mainly women. The measure's requirement that the promotion of marriage be an explicit goal of funded programs also irked leaders of the prominent women's group.
"Pressuring a poor woman to marry the father of her children--without regard to his character--could do great harm," said Patricia Ireland, president of NOW. "Congress is telling women that the way to get out of poverty is to find a husband." *****
Yoshie