To Pay or Not to Pay: The Dilemma of Prisoner Child Support
Thirty-six of the 50 United States do not allow inmates to claim incarceration as a reason for not paying child support. President Obama would like to change that number. The president feels that fathers, nationwide, who are in prison should be able to "press pause" on their child support payments while they are in prison. He cites the "immensely high debt" attributed to unpaid child support that many fathers rack up while serving time.
The thought behind the move is that if the fathers leave prison with a large debt looming over them, they may end up back in prison for not paying their child support, they may turn back to crime to pay for their huge debt, or they may simply give …show more content…
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) put it this way, “I am fundamentally opposed to policies that allow parents to abdicate their responsibilities, which, in turn, results in more families having to go on welfare....[the plan] would undermine a key feature of welfare reform, which is that single mothers can avoid welfare if fathers comply with child-support orders.”
The administration notes that half of the 2.2 million people in prison are fathers and 20 percent of them are supposed to pay child support.What they don't note is how many of those 220,000 fathers are poor and unable to pay. After all, it is one thing to be in poor, in prison, and placed under further hardship. It is quite another to be financially stable (or even wealthy) and not have to pay child support just because you are in prison. Times are hard enough for the mother and child without taking away these court-mandated living expenses.
The administration hopes to gain support for the measure by attaching a $35 million support system for the fathers. The disbursement would "provide fathers with job training, bus fare, and more helpful tools for getting back on their
Thirty-six of the 50 United States do not allow inmates to claim incarceration as a reason for not paying child support. President Obama would like to change that number. The president feels that fathers, nationwide, who are in prison should be able to "press pause" on their child support payments while they are in prison. He cites the "immensely high debt" attributed to unpaid child support that many fathers rack up while serving time.
The thought behind the move is that if the fathers leave prison with a large debt looming over them, they may end up back in prison for not paying their child support, they may turn back to crime to pay for their huge debt, or they may simply give …show more content…
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) put it this way, “I am fundamentally opposed to policies that allow parents to abdicate their responsibilities, which, in turn, results in more families having to go on welfare....[the plan] would undermine a key feature of welfare reform, which is that single mothers can avoid welfare if fathers comply with child-support orders.”
The administration notes that half of the 2.2 million people in prison are fathers and 20 percent of them are supposed to pay child support.What they don't note is how many of those 220,000 fathers are poor and unable to pay. After all, it is one thing to be in poor, in prison, and placed under further hardship. It is quite another to be financially stable (or even wealthy) and not have to pay child support just because you are in prison. Times are hard enough for the mother and child without taking away these court-mandated living expenses.
The administration hopes to gain support for the measure by attaching a $35 million support system for the fathers. The disbursement would "provide fathers with job training, bus fare, and more helpful tools for getting back on their