Should there be an upper bound on some components of child support payments?

[Boojatta]

Consider the part of court-ordered child support payments that are to cover just the child's costs for food, clothing, and transportation. Should there be a maximum that a court would be allowed to order a non-custodial parent to pay to cover a child's costs for food, clothing, and transportation?

We're talking about a possible upper bound on how much a court could legally order a specific person to pay for specific purposes. Such a law would not prevent anyone from contributing money for the child's care or put any legal restriction on the total amount of money spent for care of the child.

Suppose there is no maximum per month for food, clothing, and transportation. Suppose that the total child support payment amount must always begin as a percentage of parental gross income before some adjustments are made. Then doesn't the law mandate something like a class system? If an ordinary eight-year old child who happens to be the child of a high-income earner can be said to -- in the opinion of legislators (!) -- "need" $3,000 per month for food, clothing, and transportation, then is there any reason to suppose that any reform of any kind will take place?

Don't expect the ratio between CEO salaries and ordinary salaries to change. That's a matter for the discretion of the boards of directors. When the eight-year-old reaches adulthood, surrounded by other such adults, who is going to have the courage to say to those adults, "Enough, no increase this year or next"?

Corporations might soon take the hint from legislators and vote for new by-laws: "The basic CEO support responsibility is based, in part, on the gross revenue of the corporation. The guideline was put in the by-law to make sure that the corporation pays an amount for support that is actually close to what it costs to care for a CEO. See the table below for percentages and for exceptional circumstances that will allow for a temporary downward adjustment in the corporation's support responsibility."

I did a quick search for New York State information (for regular people, not for legal experts) and found the following:

Your basic child support responsibility is based, in part, on your gross income. If you have certain reductions, your income for child support purposes is reduced or “adjusted.”

The court multiplies your “adjusted” gross income amount by the guideline percentage for the number of children for which you are ordered to pay. These percentages are:

17% for one child
(...)

In each case, a share of child care, medical, and educational expenses are added to the appropriate percentage and the resulting number is the basic child support amount. The guideline was put in the law to make sure that people pay an amount for support that is actually close to what it costs to care for a child.

Source:
https://newyorkchildsupport.com/publications.html

Note: that's 17% of ... an arbitrary number! It could be 17% of $1500 per month or 17% of $17,647.06 per month. Yet, they say it is "close to what it costs to care for a child." Is it? Is it really?

(Of course, if there were such an upper bound, then the amount would be adjusted for inflation. It wouldn't be a fixed number of dollars per month for all time. The amount of child support would be the total of various costs. Food, clothing, and transportation are just part of that total.)

[havocmom]

1. Don't many states consider awarding amounts to maintain the lifestyle the kids knew?

I know that sure as hell doesn't work in the working class, but it seems to be a consideration in many settlements in the wealthy sector.

Sad that some of that cream on the top tier can't be skimmed to help the really struggling single again parents at the bottom tier.

[truedelphi]

2. As a single mom I spent at least 17 per cent on my child.

And at times a great deal more (Like senior year of college, when he wanted to apply at a dozen different places. And then he wanted to tour three places I knew he wouldn't go, but I wanted him to feel that his final choice waas a real choice.) I worked two jobs to get through that year.

I know that this 17 per cent amount can be a real hassle when you have someone who has a child (or two or three!) with one person and then splits, and then has other children with the new spouse.

If it totals three children, times 17 percent, the adult with an average income won't have much to live on.

I could only dream of something like 17% of 17K a month. The child support that I received was about $300 a month. It should have been a great deal more, but his dad's lawyer paid off the courts.

[Boojatta]

4. Actually, the amount in the table is 29% for three children.

If it totals three children, times 17 percent, the adult with an average income won't have much to live on.

Any economist will tell you that people who have exactly one child are wasting money! It costs them 17% per child while New York State law is based on the fact that the actual cost per child is less than 10% per child if there are three children. (It works out to nine percent plus another two-thirds of one percent.)

[truedelphi]

25. Well you only confirm what my son used to say!

Mom you really don't understand how money works!

And when I was out looking for good paying jobs, his closest 13 year old friend pointed out, "Mrs. S., if you really wanna get paid well, how come you don't interview for CEO positions, like my Daddy does!"

On another topic altogether - I don't think I would have ever survived three teen agers, even given all the money in the world!

[wtmusic]

3. There seems to be an element of "penalty" for the non-custodial

parent in that they are being forced to bear a burden which is proportional to their means, not the child's needs.

For payments above and beyond the child's needs, how much ends up benefiting the child vs. the "ex"?

[JDPriestly]

5. In California, the amount of time a parent spends with the child

is figured in. The more time the noncustodial parent spends with the child, the less that parent must pay in cash for child support. That is good for the child because it motivates the noncustodial parent to spend more time with his or her child. Of course, the more time you spend with your child, the more you will pay for the child's food, lodging and other costs while the child is with you.

Child support law varies from one state to another.

[Hekate]

6. Depends on what the meaning of "needs" is. What does a "roof over one's head" constitute?...

...The absolute minimum, or possibly staying in the house s/he's accustomed to, which might be considerably above the minimum? The house, btw, equals the school equals the neighbors equals the kids' friends. It's more than just a roof, by a long shot.

The fact that the custodial parent somehow benefits from these arrangements (i.e. by getting to live in a nice house along with the kids) shouldn't be too much of a consideration. Revenge against one's ex-spouse will in fact damage the kids, and they didn't create this mess.

By and large, after a divorce the standard of living of the ex-wife and kids plunges, while the ex-hubby's standard of living rises, even with child support.

I think legal guidelines are important in setting a certain standard, but there's also the case by case approach. Since wealth was the issue that began this thread, I would say that wealthy parents in intact families generally expect their kids to grow up in a certain social strata, and that depends on the neighborhood, the school, the college, and the ability, within reason, to keep up with those you live among. If the parents have the means, that shouldn't end when the marriage does. If the parents have been living above their means, that's a different story altogether.

I don't really care if someone thinks a child "needs" thousands of dollars a month, if the non-custodial parent is a CEO raking in millions of bucks a year he should not be pissing and moaning about what it takes to support the household his children live in. I'm sure his lawyer and her lawyer can work things out.

I'm far more concerned with what it takes to keep a middle-class family from sliding into poverty, or an already poor family from ending up on the streets. Those are the really scary stories.

Hekate

[Boojatta]

7. "what it takes to support the household his children live in"

Do courts in fact award a lump sum for all household expenses or do they make a distinction between child support payments and other payments?

"It's more than just a roof, by a long shot."
Are you referring to the roof of a car, truck, or other vehicle? The Original Post referred just to the part of child support payments that is for food, clothing, and transportation.

[truedelphi]

27. I agree with your posts except for

I would really like to see a little element of how sometimes it is the daddy who is the better custodial parent, and the wife is the main bread winner, and it is the husband's standard of living that goes to hell after the divorce.

May not happen as often as the other way around, but it does happen.

[Hekate]

30. Well, yes, take the case of Kevin Federline and Britney Spears. Egads what a disaster. nt

[truedelphi]

36. Kevin was not exactly the person who came to mind -

But yep that is one example.

Though I doubt he has to worry about his lifestyle going south.

If anything, he's several million times better off since the tw of them hoocked up (Monetarily speaking)

[uppityperson]

8. Most places child support is based on a percentage of non-custodial parent's income

I agree with this and see no need for an upper limit. Child support is NOT based on the child's needs, or the parent's needs, but on what the non-custodial parent would be ABLE to provide if they were custodial parent/parents living together sharing incomes. It is not based on "need" but on what would be.

[Boojatta]

9. 'It is not based on "need" but on what would be.'

To base things on what would be, shouldn't one look at past spending patterns over a period of time rather than at current income?

[uppityperson]

10. Nope.

[Boojatta]

11. Suppose that the percentage of gross income approach

is simply studied to see what results it would have produced if it had been applied in the past. If there happen to be reliable records of past spending and those records show numbers significantly different from the numbers generated by the percentage of gross income approach, then how can you assert with confidence that the percentage of gross income approach truly tells us "what would be" or what would have been?

[uppityperson]

12. You sure concluded a lot from "nope"

[Boojatta]

13. I concluded a lot? I described a hypothetical scenario and asked a question.

[uppityperson]

14. push poll

If there happen to be reliable records of past spending and those records show numbers significantly different from the numbers generated by the percentage of gross income approach, then how can you assert with confidence that the percentage of gross income approach truly tells us "what would be" or what would have been?

[noamnety]

15. yet another thread

where questions are posed from the point of view of identifying with those who have the most privilege, and trying to portray them as the true victims of an unjust system.

Am I interested in putting forth effort and compassion to ensure that those who earn $17,647 a month aren't abused by the system?

Why no, no I couldn't give a rat's ass about the financial hardships they face, trying to scrape by on a mere $175,000 per year after child support payments.

Better use of effort - and less clouded in (yet another) coded "maybe we need to spend more time in the women's rights forum dealing with the problems that primarily plague rich white men" pile of bullshit: How can we ensure children and single parents living in poverty have their basic needs met?

[Boojatta]

16. Do you actually oppose an upper bound or merely fail to get excited about an upper bound?

questions are posed from the point of view of identifying with those who have the most privilege, and trying to portray them as the true victims of an unjust system.

Perhaps I don't understand the OP as well as you do, but it seemed to me that the primary concern expressed in the OP is that the law basically mandates a class-based system by basing the "cost" of caring for a child on the income of the non-custodial parent. If an ordinary eight-year-old has no special needs and if the law requires that a minimum of $3000 per month be spent caring for that eight-year-old, then the law mandates privilege.

Am I interested in putting forth effort and compassion to ensure that those who earn $17,647 a month aren't abused by the system?

Should the Women's Rights forum be renamed to "Forum for Discussing the Rights of Women Who Earn Less Than $17,647 Per Month"?

How can we ensure children and single parents living in poverty have their basic needs met?

Why not create a thread in the Poverty forum to raise your question?

[noamnety]

17. Maybe you can post your OP on a men's rights forum

where it belongs.

84% of child support providers are men.
16% are women. Of the 16% who are women, how many of those are making over $200K?

The median income of someone paying child support is $42,000. The average ANNUAL child support payout is $3600.

Don't you think we might have more important shit to deal with than pretending excessive child support payments by the ultra rich is a form of oppression that is unique to women (please see forum name)? Do you think we might have more important shit to deal with than some "concerned" poster worrying about whether they are living in gendered oppression because they have to survive on $175000 a year?

Despite your pathetic attempt to portray this as a women's issue, or even more laughably, genderless (cue colbert's "I'm color blind" speech), it's very "liberal" (and not in the good way) to pretend we're all facing this problem equally. "Oh, I'm concerned with the the men AND the women who make excessive amounts of money and pay child support".

Ron Paul would be proud.

[plantwomyn]

20. Can we start alerting on these types of posts?

I agree that this is not the forum for this op. I don't think there is one.

[Boojatta]

21. I might be wrong, but I think that one person working alone can alert on a post or thread.

If you think someone is breaking any of the rules listed here, or if you think someone might be a disruptor, please click the "Alert" link on the offending post so the moderators can deal with it.

I believe that the above applies to any post in any subforum.

[Boojatta]

23. If taxes to pay for the costs of providing compulsory education

were a fixed percentage of gross monthly income, with each child's compulsory education paid directly by a flat tax on that child's parents, then compulsory education for children whose parents have low monthly income would be underfunded and compulsory education for children whose parents have high monthly income might include a lot of waste.

84% of child support providers are men.
16% are women. Of the 16% who are women, how many of those are making over $200K?

A bad law that violates the rights of two women is literally a violation of "women's rights." I interpret the plural in "women's rights" less literally and more liberally. I think that a violation of one woman's rights belongs in the category of violating "women's rights." If the Constitution said that the President must be a man who is at least 35 years of age, then I would say that it violates Senator Clinton's rights and that on that basis alone we can say that it violates women's rights.

[noamnety]

26. Yes, I quite get that you are interpreting "women's rights"

"liberally."

:eyes:

Basically anything at all, whether it's a gender issue or not, that disproportionately affects MEN but may in a small minority of instances possibly affect a couple of women, you are trying to pass off as a "women's rights" issue.

If we were all a bunch of dolts here, we'd really appreciate these sorts of posts when you make them in this forum.

But this is littering up our forum, in the same way that I would be littering up a racial equity forum in an offensive way if I started going on about how billionaires are getting unfairly taxed when they buy multi-million dollar mansions. That fact that Oprah might happen to own one of those mansions does not make it a "racial equity" issue.

Your analogy about Clinton is way off base in an offensive way. Changing a law to benefit primarily rich white men is NOT comparable to a law that excludes women from public office on the basis of their gender. That analogy alone is completely misplaced in this forum.

[Boojatta]

28. "Changing a law to benefit primarily rich white men"

Did you intend the word "to" there to be understood in the sense of motivation or in the sense of anticipated consequences?

It seems possible that a change of law could have important consequences not just in the effects on court decisions, but in prompting reconsideration of other laws and in prompting activism designed to produce other changes to the laws.

Here (slightly edited) are two things that I already posted:

If an ordinary eight-year-old has no special needs and if the law requires that a minimum of $3000 per month be spent on food, clothing, and transportation for that eight-year-old, then the law mandates privilege.

If taxes to pay for the costs of providing compulsory education were a fixed percentage of gross monthly income, with each child's compulsory education paid directly by a flat tax on that child's parents, then compulsory education for children whose parents have low monthly income would be underfunded and compulsory education for children whose parents have high monthly income might include a lot of waste.

Do you have no comment on either of those? You mentioned privilege and the first item above also mentions privilege. What do you think of courts ordering payments based on flat rate guidelines? Does it sound good to you simply because it's the status quo or do you generally speaking approve of the idea of a negative income tax for children paid for by means of a flat tax on their parents?

[noamnety]

29. Apparently there was a misunderstanding here.

I am not interested in humoring anyone who wraps their anti-woman rhetoric in fancy packaging and tries to pass it off as concern for women's rights.

Sorry that wasn't clear before.

[Boojatta]

31. "How can we ensure children and single parents living in poverty have their basic needs met?"

Earlier I suggested that you might create a thread in the Poverty forum to raise that question. I have myself started a thread in the Poverty forum and that thread uses some of the ideas in this thread.

[noamnety]

32. Excellent.

Now we just need to get this thread moved to the rich white dude forum.

[Boojatta]

33. Is your "excellent" comment based on reading that new thread

or is it just based on the existence of a new thread that is not in the Women's Rights forum?

[noamnety]

35. It was sarcasm

due to the fact that you see the problems of the poor as belonging elsewhere, while still somehow having it in your head that the problems of the rich should still be discussed in great detail in this forum.

This really brings home much of the criticism that's been leveled at the white upper middle class feminism (not that I'm implying you ARE a feminist).

[Boojatta]

39. "you see the problems of the poor as belonging elsewhere"

By "belonging elsewhere" do you mean "belonging not only here, but also elsewhere" or do you mean "belonging nowhere but elsewhere"? Perhaps you mean neither of those two, but something else?

[noamnety]

40. What I meant

was that posts by anti-woman posters posing as concerned feminists while posting shit about "abortionists" and rich people who are victimized by current child support laws :eyes: belong elsewhere.

Apologies if that wasn't clear enough for you to deduce the meaning the first time around. Perhaps they could teach that sort of thing in school - maybe with exercises requiring students to write sentences to explain the meaning of other sentences. Just a thought.

[plantwomyn]

18. Okay, Ill bite.

NO.
"We're talking about a possible upper bound on how much a court could legally order a specific person to pay for specific purposes."
Why? Are you suggesting that rich men should be able to set the amount of child support they want to pay. Your post outlines the fact that states already set a given % of non-custodial parent to pay. So why are you asking a question you have the answer to?
Or is your question really whether a man should only have to pay the average child support amount in their state?
BTW - NO
"If an ordinary eight-year old child who happens to be the child of a high-income earner can be said to -- in the opinion of legislators (!) -- "need" $3,000 per month for food, clothing, and transportation, then is there any reason to suppose that any reform of any kind will take place?"
What kind of reform are you talking about? Class reform? Inequity in pay reform? Rich bitch won't get no job reform?
My vote would be every kid gets the support they need reform.

"Corporations might soon take the hint from legislators and vote for new by-laws: "The basic CEO support responsibility is based, in part, on the gross revenue of the corporation. The guideline was put in the by-law to make sure that the corporation pays an amount for support that is actually close to what it costs to care for a CEO. See the table below for percentages and for exceptional circumstances that will allow for a temporary downward adjustment in the corporation's support responsibility."
What the hell does this have to do with child support? And where the hell did you get the quote?

Finally, I don't think you know the definition of "arbitrary". Here it is "subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion" You link and quote New York state. YOU show that NY has a "guideline" which intrinsically means the NY childcare policy IS NOT ARBITRARY.

[Boojatta]

22. "Finally, I don't think you know the definition of 'arbitrary'."

I believe that the word "arbitrary" occurs in the Original Post only once:

Note: that's 17% of ... an arbitrary number! It could be 17% of $1500 per month or 17% of $17,647.06 per month. Yet, they say it is "close to what it costs to care for a child." Is it? Is it really?

True, the values aren't completely arbitrary. For example, every individual on Earth today earns less than a trillion US dollars per month. Perhaps "arbitrary" is not the best word choice there. Now that you have drawn attention to the word, I would like to put forward the hypothesis that the number I earlier referred to as "arbitrary" has the following characteristics:

1. If we consider all non-custodial parents, then we will find a wide variety of different values for the gross monthly income.

2. There is not necessarily a fixed proportion between the gross monthly income and the actual cost of caring for a child.

[plantwomyn]

38. The word you should be using is wide-ranging.

And there isn't any way to put a number on "the actual cost of caring for a child".
It would be nice if breeders would limit themselves to the number of children they can support. Now there is a number that I would agree that there should be a set maximum allowed.
BTW my question about alerting was based on the opinion that this and some of your other posts DO NOT BELONG IN THE WOMEN'S RIGHTS FORUM.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

19. no there shouldnt be.

[Boojatta]

24. Would you have preferred a poll? Would you be willing to share some thoughts...

that you were thinking during the process of arriving at your conclusion that there shouldn't be an upper bound of the kind described in the Original Post?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

37. i dont see a good argument why their should be a upper bound?

i feel like this is another case of how the judicial system and women take advantage of poor rich men. my heart somehow doesnt bleed for them.

[electron_blue]

34. No fixed upper bound.

There are already enough guidelines in place that states use to determine child support. If anything the lower bound should be raised, from what I have seen. Noncustodial parents owe it to their children, legally, to provide to them as a function of their ability to pay. If they make more they should pay more. Just because it seems like more than *you* would need to raise a child is irrelevant.

This is consistent with how our legal system traditionally distributes "wealth" between parents and children. When it comes to inheritance, for example, we don't have a limit to what you can bequeath to your descendents. Perhaps we should, but that's another argument. Sure there are inheritance taxes, but they only take a bite out of what you can pass on to your children.

Let's face it - this issue of very large child support payments only affects the rich. Rich kids should not be raised on a middle-class budget, if we're going to be consistent with our laws dealing with family money issues. Yes, it's a class system. This is news?

If you want to chip away at the class system, don't start with child support payments.

[Boojatta]

41. If we want to chip away at the class system, where should we begin?

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

48. Unions, unions, unions!!!

Pass the Employee Free Choice Act and punish the $%^& out of employers who illegally fire workers for union organizing. Wal-Mart and friends can be tamed with a pro-labor political leadership and a courageous organizing effort.

[Warpy]

42. Billionaires shouldn't be able to get out from under for $3000/month

I'm sorry, but that's just nuts. Most courts award child support that will allow the child to maintain the lifestyle s/he enjoyed while the parents were still married when one parent was wealthy.

It should hurt to walk away from your family in favor of a young trophy wife. Some men only feel the pain in their wallets.

I'm also against lower limits since poorly paid men need enough to keep themselves alive and aren't often making even that much.

And yes, I know women whose kids were old enough to be consulted and who chose to live with their fathers. Women pay child support, too.

[raccoon]

43. Hey, Boo, would you check in here?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=229x9216

[musette_sf]

44. he doesn't need to

i already wrote his "response"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=229&topic_id=9216&mesg_id=9263

[Boojatta]

45. Kick

[mrreowwr_kittty]

46. Why?

[PeaceNikki]

47. Have you ever raised a child alone, Boojatta?