Child support reform would help families achieve self-sufficiency
by Charles N. Wheeler III
In the current age of political correctness, one of the few targets that's still fair game for disparagement is the deadbeat dad. You know who he is — the youthful Lothario who gets his teenage girlfriend "in trouble" and skips out, or the errant husband who ditches his wife and kids to relive some adolescent fantasy, leaving taxpayers to support the struggling family he's abandoned.
Unless you believe in double standards, however, the same disdain could well apply to Illinois' record of child support enforcement and administration.
The most notable failing, of course, has been the much-publicized meltdown of the state's centralized distribution system for child support payments. As a result, the state has become a deadbeat for thousands of custodial parents (the vast majority of them mothers) who rely on receiving court-ordered child support through the official bureaucracy.
To his credit, Gov. George Ryan ordered that state funds be used for emergency aid to families facing hardships because of startup problems in the centralized system. Initially, Ryan set aside $500, 000; within a matter of weeks, the outlays topped $6 million. What's still not clear — besides when the centralized unit will be serving families as well as the county-based system it replaced — is how the emergency funds are to be repaid.
| 'Deadbeat' may not be the worst that can be said about the state's child support role. How about 'scam artist'? Or ' extortionist'? |
But "deadbeat" may not be the worst thing that can be said about the state's child support role. How about "scam artist"? Or "extortionist"?
What is the proper term for an operation that keeps as much as 90 percent of the money it collects on behalf of poor kids and their moms? Try that at a "charitable organization" and you'd have a lot of explaining to do before you wound up in jail.
In Illinois, however, that's how the system has worked with child support from fathers who are doing the right thing, albeit in some cases only because of legal coercion. If a family is on welfare, no matter how much the father pays in support each month, only $50 per child goes to the family. The state and federal governments keep the rest. Last year, of $88 million collected on behalf of welfare families, $44 million went to the feds, $35 million to the state, and just $9 million wound up with the families for whom it was intended. Not even the greediest ambulance chaser would have the nerve to claim 90 percent of a personal injury settlement.
Defenders of the government grab argue that it's merely a way of recouping some of the money taxpayers already have provided needy families through welfare grants, food stamps and the like. Moreover, they say, the funds help pay for the state's child support collection efforts, from helping establish paternity to tracking down absentee fathers, getting court orders to garnish their wages, intercepting tax refunds and using other collection tools.
However, the same state services are available to custodial parents not on welfare, for whom the state collected some $233 million last year. All that money went to the families, who paid only an application fee of up to $25, depending on family income, for the state help. So, in essence, the neediest families in the state — those on welfare — are being "taxed" to pay for child support collection efforts on behalf of families who are economically better off.
The legislature last spring approved a measure to make the system fairer by providing that welfare moms who work would get two-thirds of the support paid for their children, with the state keeping the other third. Ryan, however, vetoed the bill, using the "we-gave-up-front" and the "it's-not-in-the-budget" arguments.
But human service programs are not intended to be profit-making, especially at the expense of the innocent. Illinois does not ask abused children to underwrite its child protection services, nor seniors to repay past years' tax relief grants if their economic circumstances improve. In like fashion, kids in a single-parent home should not have to bankroll the state's child support programs.
Indeed, the House sponsors of the Child Support Pays measure believe
42 / December 1999 Illinois Issues
the state's current practice is counterproductive.
"Who would participate in a system with such a disincentive?" asked Rep. Eileen Lyons, a Western Springs Republican, as the House prepared to override Ryan's veto, 102-15. Lyons and co-sponsor Rep. Julie Hamos, a Chicago Democrat, say a dad may be more willing to pay child support if most of the money goes to his kids, rather than government.
Moreover, they point out that passing along a greater share of child support to welfare moms who are working — the only ones eligible under the bill — would hasten the day when the family's total financial resources top welfare eligibility limits, thus reducing the rolls. "We're going to help families get on their own two feet faster; we're going to reduce the [grant] costs sooner," Hamos noted, "so it makes sense all the way around."
| Passing along a greater share of child support to welfare moms who are working — the only ones eligible under the bill — would hasten the day when the family's total financial resources top welfare eligibility limits, thus reducing the rolls. |
In fact, their proposal is akin to the much-praised Work Pays program,under which grants to welfare recipi- ents who work are reduced only $1 for every $3 of earnings as a way to help people work their way off welfare dependency.
Even lamer than the idea that welfare should be treated as some kind of loan to be repaid is the notion that the state can't afford the $6 million estimated price tag. In a $43 billion budget, $6 million is rounding errors. Moreover, budget bureau revenue estimates for the current fiscal year are now some $50 million higher than when the budget was enacted in May. In addition, the legislation provides that once a family's total resources — earnings, child support and cash assis- tance — reaches three times the grant level, some $1, 131 a month for a mom and two kids in Chicago, the family loses cash assistance. That proviso ought to satisfy welfare bashers who don't want anyone to get rich on the dole; the sum is still less than the federal poverty level.
At this writing, the override was pending in the Senate, where the bill won 34 votes in May. Child Support Pays would be a solid step toward helping families achieve self-sufficiency.
Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
43 / December 1999 Illinois Issues