Back from a family visit . . . more on single parents and a father’s obligations

So this comes out of a discussion while visiting with family, about the situation of a someone in the extended family:

Relative “John,” age 18 and a junior in high school (he was redshirted) gets his girlfriend “Mary” pregnant and she has twins the fall of what would be his senior year.  They both drop out of high school; he gets a job to support the children and she, initially, takes care of the babies.  Later, due to generous support, she finishes high school and begins taking college classes, while sporadically working and living alternatively with multiple relatives, with the children being watched by relatives and, for a time, by a child care center where family connections mean the owner gives her cut-rate tuition.  She’s praised for her determination to be successful and her efforts to be a good mom. 

Meanwhile, John leaves their small town for better employment prospects elsewhere (a 4 hour drive), in order to support the children, first informally, then due to a formal child support agreement.  He finds a job (being limited by having no high school diploma) with unpredictable hours, making it difficult to visit the children, and is only able to meet his child support by living with his new girlfriend (the pair broke up when he moved away), who pays their expenses.  The child support takes his discretionary income, leaving him unable to contemplate trying to get his diploma — he needs to take the unpredictable hours and try to build up a cushion, for fear of jail time if he misses a payment.  (Reportedly, when he protested the high child support amount as not leaving him anything to live off of, the judge said, “that’s not my problem.”)

Certainly, he’s a cautionary tale, but does any high school boy learn this cautionary tale?  I suppose the court system could, for instance, give such young men a break on jail for missed payments by sending them into the schools to tell their tale of woe.  And in the meantime, a pregnancy, for the young woman, is a surmountable obstacle, if she receives financial aid and all manner of government and family support, but how does a young man dig himself out of such a hole?  Since when, for instance, would a college financial aid formula calculate a “need” that includes child support payments?

So, anyway, that’s the story.  What’s the actual data?

This story comes out of Michigan, so here’s the formulas for child support there, coming from the Friend of the Court Bureau: 

General Care Support Table: Two Children
Income Amount   Base %age   Base Support   Marginal %age
$1,179                  39.4%           $464.53 +        36.22% over $1,179
$1,894                  38.2%           $723.51 +        26.19% over $1,894
$2,582                  35.0%           $903.70 +        23.68% over $2,582
$3,314                  32.5%          $1,077.05 +      22.50% over $3,314
$4,304                  30.2%          $1,299.81 +      21.75% over $4,304
$6,111                  27.7%          $1,692.75 +      20.28% over $6,111
$7,532                  26.3%          $1,980.92 +      17.01% over $7,532
$9,468                  24.4%          $2,310.19 +       15.00% over $9,468

That’s for two children; here are the percentage ranges for different numbers of children:

One child:  25.5% to 10%
Two children:  39.4% to 15%
Three children:  49.4% to 19%
Four children:  55.6% to 22%
Five + children:  60.8% to 23%

If I read the instructions correctly, this base support amount is calculated based on the total income from both parents; then this is further multiplied by the noncustodial parent’s share of the combined income. 

For individuals with income below the single-person poverty level, a flat 10% is due.

For income moderately above the poverty level, there is a transitional formula:

(H x 10%) + [(I – H) x P] = T
H = Low Income Threshold (§2.09(A))
10% = Percentage for Income below the threshold (§3.02(C)(1))
I = Parent’s Monthly Net Income
P = Percentage Multiplier for the appropriate number of children from the Transition
Adjustment table
T = Base Support obligation using the Low Income Transition Equation

Number of Children-in-Common     Percentage Multiplier1                                                            50%
2                                                            55%
3                                                            60%
4                                                            65%
5 or more                                              70%

In other words, 10% is paid for income below poverty level, and between 50% – 70% on income above this level, until income reaches a point that the other formula applies.

In addition, flat dollar amounts are added for health care expenses and child care, based on the relative size of the two parents’ incomes, and the father is required to pay a share of the birth expenses. 

And on top of this, “imputed income” is calculated if the father is unemployed and the court determines that he should be able to find a job if he just tried harder.

So — what’s the bottom line?

I don’t know how much “John” earns, but “Mary” is unemployed so presumably the full support amount is assigned to him.  The scuttlebutt on her family is that they know how to milk the system, so I suspect that they’re collecting additional amounts as child support expenses, even if it’s family members watching the children. 

Are these numbers fair?  The biggest surprise is that the percentages are much higher at lower income levels, unlike the progressive income tax, for instance, which would certainly mean that a low-income bears a much higher burden than a high earner — except for the poverty-level exemption.

And after all this reading — look, there are no easy answers.  But it does appear that a system constructed for divorcing middle-income couples leaves young men trapped and unable to make anything of themselves.