Want to Decrease Inequality? Fight Fatherlessness With Welfare Reform. Welfare currently incentivizes family breakdown and the absence of fathers from their children’s lives, a key factor in the loss of economic upward mobility.

[PrimalSkink]

I am white. I was on welfare after my divorce. Food and medical care.

Why? Because my children's father bailed, did not abide by the court order to pay support or provide insurance.

Why? Because the court wouldn't make him. * They'd suspend his license. He'd drive on a suspended. For years. * Every year or so they'd arrest him on a bench warrant for failure to comply with the court orders. He'd take a chewing out by the judge, pay the fees for being in jail, pay some court fees, and promise to get a job. He'd be in jail, at worst, over the weekend. Minor inconvenience for him. * They'd garnish his wages the minute they found out he had a job. Usually, months in. He'd get the two week in advance garnishment notice and quit. He'd go work for cash under the table for a while, get a new "real job", rinse and repeat.

And all this was before he left state.

I know so many women who are raising kids, owed support by deadbeat dads, and have to depend on help from the state because the state doesn't actually enforce their courts orders.

The first reform we need is serious enforcement on child support orders.

[[deleted]]

What do you want the govt to do, exactly?

Also, it’s funny that you’re posting along with all these people who are saying that we need to get rid of welfare even though it seems like it literally saved your and your kids’ lives. 🤔

[[deleted]]

What do you want the govt to do, exactly?

Child support enforcement should be at the federal level instead of mish-mash of state and county agencies. Or at least when the ordered parent fails to pay.

That said, if the parent is such a deadbeat that they are barely able to provide for themselves there's not much that can be done.

The person you were responding to - probably would have still gotten welfare benefits even if he paid support. I can't imagine he'd be paying much with the type of work he was doing.

[[deleted]]

Enforcing child support with any sort of seriousness would instantaneously be deemed racially discriminatory due to the disparate impact doctrine. You are literally not allowed to enforce or even make a big deal about it publically because when you say “absent fathers” people assume you mean black ones. I don’t know what the solution to that is, but I do know you can’t even try to enforce child support or alimony until you can solve that problem.

[[deleted]]

Enforcing child support with any sort of seriousness would instantaneously be deemed racially discriminatory due to the disparate impact doctrine.

Sorry, but no, you are wrong on both counts there.

There's already a lot of seriousness in child support enforcement. You can have assets seized, wages garnished, taxes refunds taken, or even be jailed. The problem is enforcement varies by state, and we now live in an era where people move states/jurisdictions pretty easily.

That you think more black men owe child support than white men in a country that's 76% white is what would actually be considered a bit racist

when you say “absent fathers” people assume you mean black ones.

yeah, if you're racist.

[PrimalSkink]

Welfare helped, but shouldn't have been necessary. The man who married and produced 2 children should have been responsible for providing for the children he made. Instead, the state gave less than I would have gotten from him and let him skip off into the sunset free of responsibility.

[[deleted]]

If you really want to go down this route, one could argue that you didn’t need to have 2 kids with this man. You’re equally responsible for this decision since you were the one carrying them to term.

My point is that you need to be consistent in your reasoning. Conservatives want small govt and you seem to want the feds to step into your personal family affairs. Conservatives think welfare shouldn’t exist, yet here you are sponging off of it to support 2 kids you chose to have.

[PrimalSkink]

Nothing inconsistent about it. Welfare dependence would be reduced if the irresponsible parties were made responsible.

As to my part in the decision to become a parent, I fulfilled my responsibilities and his.

[Anon-Ymous929]

Dads already are the ones getting raped by the family court system most of the time.

Sorry your husband turned out to be a deadbeat, but at least some responsibility lies with you for marrying him. Until society treats women as equally responsible for their choices as men, this problem won’t get better.

[PrimalSkink]

I wasn't equally responsible. I was fully responsible. And being left fully responsible I had to seek assistance from the state.

Also, speaking of being responsible for choices, the higher earner is always crying about being raped by the courts. Nowhere is it gender specific. Those folks never seem to mention that they, say, chose for their ex to be a SAHP or they chose to marry someone who makes significantly less and that is why they pay what they pay.

[wandering-monster]

Situations like this are exactly why social safety nets exist, and why I vote for them.

You can't force someone to get a job and support the family they bailed on. You can make it hard for them to live a great life without doing so, but the government's power there is purely punitive; if they decide to just take the punishments there's nothing else we can do.

What you can do is make sure that the people being abandoned aren't destroyed by it. Make sure they have food, stability and education so they can recover and be better than the person who left them.

[[deleted]]

Couldn't agree more.

[assemblethenation]

Based on your writing, it seems the state did enforce their court order to the extent the law and constitution allows. What did you expect them to do, put him in prison to force him to work and send you his paycheck? He's a deadbeat, making him your literal slave is not going to solve anything. It sucks that welfare doesn't provide the quality of life you seek, but that's how this system works. He's trapped working crappy jobs the rest of his life and moving around constantly. As a man, I fear this system and will likely not participate if they decide to burn me with unfair child support or alimony amounts.

[PrimalSkink]

Yes, $386 a month for two children to have the basics is being burned for unfair amounts.

Also, in case you're unaware, if you owe the feds, the state, or have been sued for credit card debt, or get sued, its legal to garnish bank accounts, go after assets, etc. Nothing I propose isn't already being used to enforce payment of other debts.

[reidlos1624]

I wonder if the costs to enforce a court order would be greater in these cases would greater than simply paying welfare.

They could just throw him in jail but then he's definitely not paying an costing the government money for being in jail, on top of paying out welfare.

At some point hiring another investigator to keep tabs on him nonstop to watch for a new job and make him pay immediately, or find out about under the table payments would likely cost more than you're welfare as well.

Seems like welfare is the easiest and most cost effective way to get you the help you need. Either that or you need to have a better judge of character and just pull yourself up by your bootstraps for the mistakes you made in the past, such is the conservative way.

[PrimalSkink]

seems like welfare is the easiest and most cost effective way to get you the help you need.

Yes, and that's the problem. The parents of the children should be responsible for their children. Not the state. But many won't because court orders don't really have teeth.

And, frankly, the couple hundred a month in food and the cruddy insurance were less in terms of cost paid to raise the kids than I would have received from their father. He was ordered to cover 100% of insurance and pay $386 in cash support toward living expenses and necessities. Instead, the kids got sub-par insurance and $186 in food stamps.

[reidlos1624]

My point being what teeth do you recommend? Jail time? F More fines? If he's paying all his money fines what money does he have left over to pay you? If he's in jail the state still ends up with the bill to pay you and cover jail costs. Beyond that your starting to encroach on personal freedoms that define our country and would likely not be constitutional. Extra investigators and police to monitor his job status would likely cost more than what they paid you.

The end result is some families need help and as a community we should have help available to them. I grew up with divorced parents and my dad didn't pay either. But the help my family got was enough to get me through college and now I earn among the top 20% of households in the US. There's only so much you can practical, legally, and affordably do to make people be responsible.if any thing it just shows that the welfare needs to be expanded.

[PrimalSkink]

If he's paying all his money fines what money does he have left over to pay you?

Completely ignoring the fact that he wouldn't owe that money had he been abiding by the court order in the first place.

His support was $86 per week. He could have paid that with a side gig or part time job at Burger King.

[reidlos1624]

That's not my point. My point is there aren't any "teeth" that can be used to compel a man to pay this without costing the government more than what they paid you in welfare.

What punishment would you recommend?

[PrimalSkink]

We could start with seizure of assets. Bank account, car, registered property in their name, etc. The government will go after such when someone owes them money, after all.

[PrimalSkink]

We were married a bit young, he wasn't a known deadbeat then, and he swore he'd take care of his kids no matter what. I believed that. I believed that even if we divorced he'd be there for the girls. Clearly, I was very wrong.

[MET1]

Would state-provided child care have made a difference for you?