sex payments provide unequal child support: Turner v. Rogers reality

The pending U.S. Supreme Court case Turner v. Rogers concerns Turner’s failure to make court-order payments commonly called child support.  These “child support” payments are based not on the financial needs of children, nor on the financial needs of the custodial parent, but on the administratively determined nominal income of the non-custodial person.  A non-custodial man can be merely the sperm contributor.  Child support is a government-run welfare system that predominately distributes money to a woman in proportion to the income of the man with whom she had the relevant sex or who was otherwise established as father.  As the facts of Turner v. Rogers illustrate, child support badly serves poor women and poor men.

When South Carolina imposed child-support payments on Turner, Turner was unemployed and Rogers was receiving state financial aid for parents.  Rogers was required to declare the paternity of her child in order to receive state financial aid.  She declared Turner to be the biological father.  Using an administrative formula, South Carolina’s Oconee County Family Court imputed to Turner a nominal income of $16,632 per year.  Using another administrative formula, the Court ordered Turner to pay Rogers $2690 per year (in equal weekly payments) as child support.  Turner’s failure to pay this amount led to him being incarcerated six times for child-support arrears.  Rogers, unable to support financially the child, relinquished custody to her mother and also became subject to a child-support order for the child.  Thus Rogers is now subject to incarceration for child-support arrears, just as Turner is.[1]

Rogers could have received a much different child-support award.  Across the U.S. in 2003, 9% of custodial parents living below the poverty level had child-support awards averaging $554 per year.  At the same time, 11% of custodial parents living below the poverty level had child-support awards averaging $11,013 per year.[2]  That 22-fold ratio in child-support awards for impoverished parents has nothing to do with the needs of children. It arises from differences in administrative formulas and difference in mating choices of impoverished custodial parents.  Parents who had the relevant sex with higher-income persons get higher legal awards of child support.

Child-support awards have little relation to impoverished parents’ total income.  Among custodial parents living in poverty in 2003, those with child support awards averaging $554 per year had average yearly money income of $7,340.  Impoverished parents with child support awards averaging $11,013 per year had nearly the same average yearly money income ($7,642). In order for an impoverished mother to receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), she must declare the child’s paternity and assign child support payments to the state.  For parents receiving TANF, child-support awards determine not financial support for children, but the financial burdens on the non-custodial persons and the extent of state revenue.  At least among impoverished custodial parents, considerable substitution between child support and other income sources apparently occurs.[3]

Parents above the poverty level typically get more state-ordered financial child support than do parents living in poverty.  Among parents with a child-support award and living above the poverty level, 25% had child-support awards averaging $11,467 per year.  Among parents with a child-support award and living in poverty, only 11% had child-support awards about that level.  Compared to parents living in poverty, parents living above the poverty level receive more child support because of assortative mating — higher-income persons are more likely to have sex with higher-income persons. Legally imposed financial child support is based on the income of the custodial parents’ relevant sex partner.  The government-run child-support system is essentially a sex-payment system that re-enforces welfare inequalities.

The child-support system has on net harmed Turner and Rogers.  The child-support system has imposed enormous burdens on Turner, including incarceration, for no more action that he took than to have sex as an unmarried 18 year-old in 1995.  The child-support system has contributed to Turner’s poverty.  The child-support system has done little to alleviate Rogers’ poverty.  Because of her poverty, Rogers relinquished custody of her children to her mother in 2009.  The child-support system has failed to support Rogers and her children.

Whatever Turner v. Rogers decides about the benefit of counsel for an indigent child-support debtor facing incarceration, the child-support system deserves more critical legal and policy scrutiny.

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Statistics:

child-support recipients, awards, and actual receipts, grouped by award level and the poverty status of the custodial parent, for the U.S. in 2003 (Excel version)

Notes:

[1] For the case details described above, see Turner v. Rogers, Petitioner’s Brief, pp. 8-10.

[2] Available child-support statistics divide recipients into award-value groups.  The above statistics are for the smallest ($1 to $999 per year) and the largest ($7000 and over) award-value groups.  The average figures are the mean child-support award for all the recipients in the relevant award-level group.  In 2003, child support actually received was 69% of the average child-support award.

[3] Sorensen (2010), which is work funded by the U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement, states:

  • Without child support, child poverty would increase by 4.4 percent.
  • Child support represents, on average, 10 percent of poor custodial family income and 40 percent of income for poor custodial families who receive it.

These statements should be interpreted with respect to a crucial footnote in Sorensen (2010):

This analysis is similar to other analyses that examine family income with and without a specific income source without taking into account other changes that might occur if that income source is not received, such as going onto public assistance.

As noted above, considerable substitution between child support income and other income sources appears to occur.  Analysis of child support not merely intended to buttress the status quo should consider how such income substitution would influence actual changes in the child poverty rate in response to changes in child support.  In the U.S. in 2008, 19% of children (persons under age 18) lived in poverty.  That indicates that current arrangements for supporting children are working quite poorly.  More equitable distribution of child support could easily lower the child poverty rate.

Reference:

Sorensen, Elaine (2010). Child Support Plays an Increasingly Important Role for Poor Custodial Families. Urban Institute Brief. Dec. 2010.

social innovation in the long term

Marsupial social organization apparently has changed greatly over the past 64 million years. Marsupials that lived 64 million years ago were gregarious: fossils show 35 marsupials living within likely physical contact of each other. That fossil group also shows considerable sexual dimorphism of the sort associated with male-to-male mating competition and polygyny.[1] In short, marsupials, which are a division of mammals, had 64 million years ago a social organization similar to that of young adult humans living in high-income urban areas today. Marsupials today, in contrast, are usually highly solitary mammals.

More recent historical evidence points to considerable variability in the formation of larger, more enduring human groups.  The 8.5-meter-tall stone tower at Jericho, constructed about 11 thousand years ago, required considerable collective human effort.  It clearly doesn’t directly relate to providing food, shelter, or physical safety.  The tower at Jericho probably was related to a complex of beliefs that played a key role in instituting the associated community.[2]  Recent excavations at a site called WF16 in Jordan about 100 kilometers south of Jericho have uncovered an amphitheater-shaped structure with two levels of decorated benches along the inner side of the structure’s wall.  Other buildings at W16 have a variety of shapes and apparent communal purposes.  Like the tower at Jericho and the monumental complex at Gobekli Tepe, W16 buildings indicate that complex shared beliefs motivated community investment.[3]

A recent AOL / Nielsen study found that 23% of all social media messages contain links to content.  The study headlined: “Content is the fuel of the social web.”  But fuel is tightly defined technologically.  Content encompasses enormous space for performative play.  Content in social networks functions primarily as social objects in negotiating human relationships.

Human nature, external technology, and economics leave open considerable possibilities for social organization.  Digital technology and the Internet vastly increase possibilities for creating content. What content is produced and shared will significantly effect social organization.  Create and share content well!

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Notes:

[1]  Ladevèze, Sandrine, Christian de Muizon, Robin M. D. Beck, Damien Germain, & Ricardo Cespedes-Paz. “Earliest evidence of mammalian social behaviour in the basal Tertiary of Bolivia.” Nature Letter (2011) doi:10.1038/nature09987  Here’s a news article covering this research.

[2] Liran, Roy,  & Ran Barkai. “Casting a shadow on Neolithic Jericho.”  Antiquity, v. 85, n. 327 (Mar. 2011).

[3] Finlayson, Bill, Steven J. Mithen, Mohammad Najjar, Sam Smith, Darko Maricevic, Nick Pankhurst, and Lisa Yeomans.  “Architecture, sedentism, and social complexity at Pre-Pottery Neolithic A WF16, Southern Jordan.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. (PNAS), May 2, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1017642108

punishing prisoners with child support debt

The U.S. state of Texas provides indigent child-support debtors with an attorney to help them avoid being incarcerated for being indigent and hence unable to pay child support.  South Carolina, in contrast, imprisons indigent child support debtors without ensuring them the benefit of counsel (see Turner v. Rogers). Thus on this measure of legal due-process protection, Texas shows more concern for child-support debtors.

More concern for child-support debtors in Texas doesn’t amount to much concern.  Consider the Texas Attorney General’s brochure, Incarcerated Parents and Child Support: the Handbook for Incarcerated Parents.  The brochure’s intended audience is incarcerated parents in Texas.  It provides answers to frequently asked questions about child support.

I’m in prison and can’t work. Why doesn’t my child support order change?

Good question.  The brochure’s response doesn’t answer this question.  Instead, it shames the prisoner (what about your children’s needs?) and declares authoritatively that the order to pay doesn’t change despite state action (incarceration) that deprives the person of the ability to earn income.  The prisoner has to file a form to request a modification of the child support order.  The totalitarian Bradley Amendment makes the date of filing the form determine the possible time frame for modifying the child-support order. ANYONE WHO IS INCARCERATED WHILE SUBJECT TO A CHILD-SUPPORT ORDER SHOULD FILE A REQUEST FOR CHILD SUPPORT REDUCTION IMMEDIATELY.  Or at least as soon as the prison or jail gives you the form and the means to file it.

Administratively determined child-support payment levels are like prices set in the Soviet Union.  Mountains of technical documents generated Soviet prices, and so too today for child-support financial payment levels.  Limited administrative information, many differing details of individual circumstances, and economic dynamics regularly made Soviet prices into highly damaging economic nonsense.  A county-wide recession and acute personal misfortunes likewise can make child-support orders into economic nonsense.

I was receiving child support payments before I came to prison. What happens to my child support payments while I’m in prison?

The motherhood phrase “child support” deludes many.  Child support is paid mainly to mothers and carries with it no obligation to spend “my child support payments” on the child, nor even to provide any accounting for how “my child support payments” are spent.  The Attorney General’s response implicitly acknowledges that the phrase “child support” is merely a motherhood statement:

The Attorney General’s Office will continue to send child support payments to the {incarcerated} custodial parent (CP) through the option he or she {in about 90% of cases, she} selected for receiving child support. If the CP doesn’t request any changes, the payments will continue to be sent through direct deposit to his or her { in about 90% of cases, her} checking account or debit card, or a check will be mailed to the address previously requested. Child support payments {to the incarcerated person} will not stop unless a court order redirects payments to another person.

The child support system sends payments to mothers and can’t even be bothered to send the payments to the children’s caretaker when a mother is incarcerated.

{I’m incarcerated and} I don’t have a child support case, so I don’t have anything to worry about, right?

You may not have a child support case when you go to prison, but that doesn’t mean a new case can’t be established while you are incarcerated. If you are served with legal papers from the Attorney General’s Office, it is important that you respond promptly in writing to the court that issued the papers and the local child support office that is named in the papers. If you do not respond, the court may make a decision on your child support case without your involvement, which is called a default judgment, and includes setting the amount of child support you must pay regardless of your situation.

Not filling out a form (default judgement) establishes “paternity” in a large share of child support cases.  Biological paternity matters only if a child-support order can’t be established through marital presumption or not returning a form.

What are the legal benefits for an incarcerated father when paternity is established?

Establishing paternity has many benefits for both children and parents. The most important benefit for children is knowing that they have a father who wants to be in their life. Once paternity has been established, you become the legal father of that child, with all the rights and responsibilities of a father who was married to the mother. The Texas Attorney General’s Office cannot help you obtain visitation with or custody of your child. There is no guarantee of the right to custody or visitation, but you have a right to raise the issue of custody and visitation in court or during the child support review process.

Establishing legal paternity benefits child-support administrators, because paternity establishments are one of their performance measures.  The claim,”The most important benefit for children {of legally establishing paternity} is knowing that they have a father who wants to be in their life” is grotesque, absurd, emotional coercion applied to prisoners who are already likely to be feeling an acute sense of personal failure.  Children don’t care about legal documents that a prisoner signs.  A prisoner voluntarily establishing paternity makes it easier for a child support agency to bury him in child-support debt while he is in prison.  I cannot see any advantage to a prisoner of voluntarily acknowledging paternity to a child-support agency.

What does it mean to “acknowledge paternity”?

Paternity means fatherhood.  When both parties sign an AOP {Acknowledgement of Paternity} and it is filed with the Texas Vital Statistics Unit (VSU), the biological father becomes the legal father.  Once paternity has been established, the father’s name is placed on the birth certificate.  A court can order him to pay child support and may grant him the rights for visitation or possession of his child.

Paternity means fatherhood, or not returning a form, or having sex and being confronted with unplanned parenthood.  Despite the Attorney General’s statement, signing an Acknowledgement of Paternity does not necessarily make the biological father the legal father.  Men are subject to significant paternity uncertainty until they acquire highly certain knowledge with modern DNA testing.  Signing a form does not change biological facts.  Moreover, a court is highly unlikely to grant a prisoner rights for visitation or possession of his legally established child.  Even if a court did, prison officials probably would not allow such rights to be exercised.  To repeat, I cannot see any advantage to a prisoner of voluntarily acknowledging paternity to a child-support agency.

Are fathers treated differently from mothers in child support matters?

No. In terms of support, custody, or visitation, the law does not discriminate based upon the gender of a person. The law focuses on what is the best interest of the child.

From 1993 to 2007, about five mothers were awarded child custody for every father awarded child custody.  Across that same period, about eight mothers were awarded child support for every father awarded child support.  What does gender equality actually mean? Among full-time wage and salary workers in the U.S. in 2010, women’s median weekly earnings were 19% less than men’s. This gender gap has attracted enormous concern about sex discrimination.  But everyone is supposed to believe that women receiving child support eight times as frequently as men has nothing to do with sex discrimination.

The respondents in Turner v. Rogers argued that indigent child-support obligors don’t need the benefit of counsel.  Anyone inclined to believe that claim should ponder the counsel that the Texas Attorney General provides about child support to incarcerated persons.

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photo sharing via mobile phones likely to grow

Camera data for flickr show that camera-phone users who upload photos to flickr upload about 7 photos per day at the median rate across different camera-phone models.  More capable smartphones have higher photo uploading frequencies.  For example, the photo upload frequencies among iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 4 users are 7.0, 9.7, and 11.1 per day, respectively.[1]  The highest photo uploading frequency among devices with 100 or more active users on flickr is the HTC Evo 4G.  Its users upload 12.6 photos to flickr per day. The Evo 4G is a highly capable smartphone released in June, 2010.  It has a 4.3 inch (diagonally measured) screen with 480×800 pixel resolution, a front-facing camera for video calls, and an 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with dual-LED flashes and a variety of camera exposure controls for photos.  That’s industry-leading technology.  Evo 4G owners seem to be putting it to frequent photo use.

The flickr photo upload frequencies for camera phones are roughly comparable to the U.S. average of 13 mobile calls per day per mobile phone user.  flickr photo uploaders are likely to be more technically savy and web-engaged than a representative sample from the whole population of mobile phone users.  In addition, voice call frequencies depend on ill-specified accounting rules for uncompleted calls and calls reaching voice mail services.  Nonetheless, the data suggests that for some share of mobile phone users, photo sharing is an activity with frequency roughly comparable to voice calls.

Looking at the data by camera technology aggregates, camera-phone photo uploading frequencies are only about half that for DSLR and point-and-shoot cameras.  DSLR and point-and-shoot cameras are less oriented to ordinary communication among family and friends than are camera-phones. The former also generally have less capable photo communication capabilities than the latter.  One can reasonable expect that in the future camera-phone users will have higher photo sharing frequencies than roughly comparable DSLR and point-and-shoot camera users.[2]

Unlike traditional wireline phones, mobile phones enable communication via voice, text, and vision.  Text messaging exceeded voice calls in frequency in mid-2007 in the U.S. Photo sharing via phone is becoming quite popular.  Video calling technologies are also developing rapidly.  The value advantage of mobile phones over traditional wireline phones is much broader than just mobility.

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Data:  flickr camera data on Needle.  The Needle dataset is loosely coupled to flickr, continually acquires data, and allows anyone to query the data.  Tools like Needle welcome everyone to the technological frontier of an open, real-time web of data.

Notes:

[1] Calculations based on data from May 5 to 15, 2011.  These and other figures above may change slightly as Needle acquires data for subsequent dates and automatically updates the calculated statistics.

[2] The characteristics of DSLR and point-and-shoot camera users are likely to differ from the characteristics of camera-phone users.  Camera-phone users are also a much larger population.  Users characteristics undoubtedly will affect frequency of photo uploading. The point is that camera-phones are more oriented toward photo communication than are DSLRs and point-and-shoot cameras.