Child Support: How much is too much?

My Psychology Today post on the legal wrangling over the new Massachusetts child-support guidelines is attracting a lot of comments. I tried not take sides on the dispute, but merely to ask whether the guidelines are fair. How do we determine what's a fair child-support payment?

It's not an easy question to answer, and not one that lawyers are equipped to answer.

The people who have the expertise to even take a wild stab at establishing fair payment guidelines would be economists, demographers, or social scientists. Not lawyers. Yet it is lawyers and judges who are charged with devising guidelines and implementing them.

This question wouldn't interest me much except for one thing. This is not just about money. This is about relationships between non-custodial parents, usually fathers, and their children. Rancor or economic disparity caused by faulty guidelines can damage a relationship between a father and his children.

None of us should want that. Not even the most wounded, angry, or vengeful parent. Sadly, however, in practice, children's well-being is often sacrificed by battling parents.

We want child-support guidelines that can ease that fighting, not exacerbate it.

Minnesota is considering changing its custody laws to presume that parents will share physical custody. That does not require shared custody; but it establishes that as the presumption, unless negotiations or a judge's ruling lead elsewhere. Only a handful of states--notably Iowa--have moved in this direction. Fathers' advocates generally like it, believing that it gives them more rights following divorce. Women's advocates are generally unhappy about it, for the same reason. And experts are divided.

And a study out of England suggests that good fathering has benefits. Here's the gist of it, from New Scientist:

"The more effort a father invests in his children, the smarter they are as kids and more successful as adults, new research shows. And highly educated fathers make even more of a difference than less educated dads, all things being equal."

Getting child support right

A federal judge on Monday threw out a legal challenge to new Massachusetts child support guidelines.

According to an article by the Associated Press, Judge Douglas Woodlock denied the request for an injunction to block the guidelines, which took effect Jan. 1. He said it would be inappropriate for the federal court to address questions over state policy.

The suit was brought by Fathers and Families, a Boston organization that seeks to reform child custody and support.

Dr. Ned Holstein, the executive director of Fathers and Families, told the AP that the group would probably refile the lawsuit in state court.

He is concerned that the new guidelines will boost child support payments to a level many fathers cannot afford. "Somewhere there has to be relief for people who are going to be driven into poverty," he told the AP.

Massachusetts chief administrative Judge Robert Mulligan, who oversaw the drafting of the new guidelines, said in a statement Monday that he is "very confident...that the changes are in the best interests of children across the state."

Fathers' group sues to block Mass child support guidelines

Fathers & Families, a Massachusetts advocacy group, filed suit in Federal District Court on Dec. 31 to block new child-support guidelines in Massachusetts.

The group says the new guidelines are not based on data on the costs of raising children and are therefore "arbitrary and capricious."

Fathers & Families says the new guidelines will boost child support payments substantially. Some might argue that such a boost is long overdue; Fathers & Families argues that the payments will be far too high under the proposed guidelines. I can't sort the arguments out here, but clearly one would think such guidelines ought to be based on data, not on some theoretical notion that payments are currently too low.

The executive director of Fathers & Families, Dr. Ned Holstein, served on the task force that devised the new guidelines, and he filed a tough minority report opposing the task force's conclusions.

Here's Holstein, from a post on the Fathers & Families website: “These new guidelines will create a ‘castle versus a hovel’ situation for kids. These increases are radical and unexplained. They come at the worst possible moment, just as a bad recession is causing people to lose their jobs or suffer declining incomes. Our lawsuit is a way of saying, ‘Let’s pause and reconsider the wisdom of these controversial changes at this moment.’”

The bottom line, says Holstein, is that the new guidelines will harm children. "Kids want to live with both parents after divorce, and we want them to be well cared for in both homes."

Read the legal complaint. Links to the new guidelines and the task force's majority report are here.