Abandonment Health Article

Abandonment

Legal term describing the failure of a non-custodial parent to provide support to his or her children according to the terms approved by a court of law.

An enduring issue that has received increasing attention since the 1970s, abandonment refers to non-custodial parents who do not fulfill court-ordered financial responsibilities to their children, regardless of their involvement in their children's lives in other ways. Lack of such support is blamed for substantial poverty among single-parent families.

In 1993 it was estimated that up to 27% of children in the United States, representing 11.5 million families, lived in single-parent households headed by women. Fewer than half received any financial support from the non-custodial parent. The income of more than a third of these households fell below the poverty level. The term "deadbeat dads" is often used in discussions about abandonment because most of the parents involved are fathers.

An increasing divorce rate and a rise in the number of infants born to unmarried mothers were in large part responsible for forcing the abandonment issue into public consciousness in the 1970s. Traditionally, at least during the 20th century, mothers involved in divorce or unwed births were routinely given physical custody of children, while fathers were granted visitation rights and ordered to pay a certain amount of money to help care for the children's needs. Many men ignored this financial responsibility, forcing some women to get jobs or to seek government support.

States have always taken on the main responsibility for ensuring the welfare of abandoned children. Federal involvement came as early as 1935, when the Social Security Act established the Aid to Dependent Children program, primarily to assist widows. Over subsequent years, federal provisions strengthened the states' mandate. During the early 1970s, when the government's financial burden grew as more and more women turned to welfare, the U.S. Congress began to call for even stronger child-support enforcement provisions.

Enforcement laws vary from state to state. Garnishing wages, attacking bank accounts, and foreclosing on real estate are all used to force payment to affected children. As of 1995, all state enforcement systems were required to be automated, allowing more efficient monitoring of payment and better tracking of violating parents. Some states have begun to deny drivers' and professional licenses to known delinquent parents. "Wanted" posters and other forms of advertising are more unconventional methods used occasionally to locate such parents.

Most states give priority to finding parents whose children, lacking parental support, are receiving government assistance. Some families with independent incomes turn to lawyers or private collection agencies to find offenders and bring them to court for nonpayment. In recent years, hundreds of agencies specializing in child support collection, some of them unscrupulous, have been formed to meet the demand forced by overburdened state agencies. They sometimes charge exhorbitant retainer or contingency fees, substantially reducing the size of the payment recovered by the family.

In the 1990s, the federal government adopted measures to further assist states in the support-collection effort. Military personnel files have become more available, and a program to confiscate federal tax refunds has contributed to keeping the issue in the spotlight. The 1992 Child Support Recovery Act allows courts to impose criminal penalties on parents who cross state lines to avoid child support payments. In 1993, the Department of Health and Human Services gave $1.5 billion to local agencies trying to locate offenders.

Some support exists for consolidating child-support enforcement through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rather than the states. Proponents argue that only the IRS can efficiently confiscate deadbeat parents' income and return it to children. Opponents contend that the involvement of the federal bureaucracy would more likely add inefficiency to the enforcement process and only aggravate an already growing problem.

Tardy or absent child support is often coupled with contentious custody battles. A number of family support groups have been formed in recent years to help parents understand their legal rights and alternatives, as well as to lend emotional support. One group—Advocates for Better Child Support (ABC'S), started in 1989 in Massachusetts—has advised up to 10,000 families. It educates custodial parents about their rights, lobbies for legislative reform, works with local enforcement agencies, and offers emotional support to parents. Other groups around the country offer similar services.

The magnitude of the child-support problem will likely continue in the next century. One proposal sure to receive scrutiny calls for "support assurance." Parents obligated to pay child support would make their payments to a federal agency that would funnel the money to recipients and be responsible for collecting delinquent payments. Like other federal entitlement programs, the government would make appropriate payments to children even if their parents do not.