The Bottom Line If the 1980s were the decade of the Deadbeat Dad and The 1990s, the decade of the Deadbroke DadThe 2020’s should be the decade in which we recognize that there is a

broad swath of dads in the middle about which little attention is paidThese fathers make up to $40,000 annually, when they are working,

which was most of the time before the recession They are much larger and more diverse population than most people

think They are major targets of the expansion of health care reform Major part of the expansion of the EITC to nonresident fathers, which

many policymakers contemplated before the recession, To provide the same support to working poor and near poor NCPs as the federal

EITC provides to single mothers and their children And they need help to if we are slow the growth of  

 

Divergent TrendsIn the 1980s, Making Fathers Pay popularized the

Deadbeat Dad, which helped to galvanize the nation’s efforts to make child support enforcement much tougher

Oddly, our commitment to child support at the Federal level began at the same time that we began a 40 year period during which males earnings stagnated and earnings of those decline in the earnings of men without graduate degrees.

The Federal Office Of Child Support was created in 1974 to coordinate child support enforcement, and over the next two decades as we strengthened our ability to collect child support, the ability of men without graduate degrees to support their children declined.

Policies Towards Nonresident FathersHistorically we have focused on collecting

child support from nonresident fathers because child supportReduces the gap between their children and

children living in two-parent families. accounts for 25 percent of the income of single

parent familiesReduces poverty in single-mother families.Improves child development. Is associated with visitation

Vulnerable Nonresident Fathers: GrowthHowever the number of nonresident fathers unable

to meet their child support obligations has grown and become much more diverse since that time because ofchanges in family-related attitudes and behavior long-term declines in male earnings

Perhaps 9 percent of all adult men between 15 and 44 years old are nonresident fathers who are unable to provide adequate support for their children.

Prior to the 2007 2009 recession, most of these fathers were among the working poor or near poor.

Economically Vulnerable Nonresident FathersErnest (P6) is a 42 year old African-American father

who grew up in a two-parent family on Long Island. Ernest has what he calls a “moderate education” with a GED, one year of college and an environmental response training program under his belt. He has had a string of short term jobs that he terms "job hopping” but is currently unemployed. Like so many men in this sample, life has not been easy for Ernest. Ernest lost his left eye in an accident, has served time in prison, and has suffered with both drug abuse and depression. He currently shares a room with three other men in a housing situation that he describes as "a step up from being in a shelter."

…and diversityAlthough men of color are overrepresented among

vulnerable nonresident fathers, more than half of the men in this population are white and more than two thirds of them worked full-time.

Most Americans have an ex-husband, brother, cousin, or nephew who is a vulnerable nonresident father

Yet we know little about this population, orWhat efforts they make to stay in contact with their

children, What barriers they face in making these efforts, How these efforts may contribute to child's health and well-

being, and How these contributions might be increased.

More on DiversityIn the 1980s and 1990s, sociologist particularly William

Julius Wilson Elijah Anderson popularized the idea of the marginalization of black and Latino men in urban areas as the US economy restructured

But virtually all men without college degrees experienced declines in their earnings since the mid-1970s

Further 40% of US births are to unmarried women and the majority of births to American women over thirty are now nonmarital births.

Therefore nonresident fatherhood is widespread among young men who lack postsecondary schooling and high earnings

How Many ..• There are 7.5 million nonresident fathers in America,

about 5.3 million earned no more than $40,000 (NSFG). • There are 9.5 million nonresident fathers, but only

about 40% have child support orders (TRIM 3). • Only 40% of nonresident fathers paid all the child

support they owed; but only nonresident fathers making up to $40,000 only 33% paid all the child support they owed.

• We think of this group earning up to $40,000 as vulnerable because most are poorly educated, fully employed, and they have to choose among poverty, near-poverty or supporting their children.

EarningsNon-resident children 1 2 1 2 1 2

Child Support (3,400) (5,000) (5,100) (7,500) (6,800) (10,000)

Taxes & CreditsFederal TaxesState TaxesOther Taxes

ExpensesHousingTransportationFoodHealthcare

Apparrel

Net disposable income (6,354) (7,954) (1,304) (3,704) 3,011 (189)

SOURCE: Consumer Expenditure Survey, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September, 2010NOTE: Expenditures for the thresholds shown were calculated as the linear interpolation of the CES reported averages for the income classes just below and above the threshold shown.

$40,000

(86) (79)

Personal Care Products & Services

(2,794)

(1,196) (403)

(10,975)

(4,446)

171

(130) (90)

(13,578) (6,664) (5,199)

(4,355)

281

(2,933)

(1,317) (450)

Annual Income and Expenditures among Non-Custodial Fathers, 2010

(11,927) (5,556)

(3,850) (2,352)

(1,023) (364)

$20,000 $30,000

49

(26) (60)

Bills and Household Items (cont’d) [ So what are some things that you typically spend your money on?

[Food. I like to eat. Six three and half but I got a high metabolism, I like to eat. You like to eat a lot?[I get bored I eat.[ So what are your top three expenses presently?]2167: Top three expenses? Rent, food, household.[The utilities, rent, food, and utilities.] Yeah, utilities, that’s basically it.

[So you were saying that it was difficult when you were working on your income. What was difficult about it?] What - uh, cause to provide, you know what I mean? Things in the house that need to be in the house and I didn’t necessarily have the money for it. I mean, yeah, well food goes without question, you know what I mean? And see the funny thing about food stamps is you have to give her like three and some change but that goes like that. You know what I mean? You gotta survive off of that for a month. You know what I mean? And not for nothing it is kinda hard. Especially when you have three people in your house including my bab - you know my son. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s hard um

Mancession Made Matters Worse

Because male employment is concentrated in manufacturing and construction, unemployment rose more for men than women during the great recession.

And consequences were long lastng because the average unemployment duration has risen to a historic high of more than 30 weeks.

In July 2011 4 percent of the labor force reported that

they had been unemployed for more than six months,

¾’s unemployed for more than a year.

Cascading During the Recession50% of job loses during the great recession

found only part-time jobsOnly a fourth of workers who lost jobs found

a new job 30 monthsOver half of workers who found new jobs had

to take a pay cutOverall declines in male labor force

participation that have recently drawn lots of media attention.

Recession: Harder on Vulnerable Nonresident FathersBy the demographic characteristics

vulnerable nonresident fathers were more vulnerable to the recessionMore likely to be men of colorLess likely to have post- secondary schooling

4% percent less likely to be employed then resident fathers (Fragile Families).

Making ends meet Vulnerable nonresident fathers experienced

similar hardships during the recession and adjusted in similar waysUnable to meet basic expensesDepleted savings and unemployment insuranceBorrowed from friends and familyDoubling up

Except, Vulnerable Nonresident Fathers Talked Much More about Irregular Work. A constant for chronically unemployed

fathers (w/ felonies)A temporary adjustment strategy for

working-poor fathersPrior qualitative studies associate irregular

work with men of color in the inner cities, especially fathers, but

Studies based on Fragile Families shows that irregular work (along with regular work) is quite common among vulnerable fathers.

Education Regret

Vulnerable fathers believed in the achievement ideology: More education would have raised their earnings and insulated them from the recession

Regretted getting derailed from their educational paths when they were younger.

Whether high school dropouts or college graduates, most of the vulnerable fathers wanted to return to school, but could not because of their child support obligations

Fathers learned this lesson the hard way, and overwhelmingly wished to save their children from making the same mistakes.

They worked hard to stay present in their children’s educational lives, by maintaining the emotional

But were still much less engaged than resident fathers especially in their children’s schools.

Education, Child Support, and educationErnest took out a loan and started a program but after only two

months, the school went bankrupt and he was left with an extraordinary$14,000 debt. This debt hinders his ability to return to school, as well as his ability to save money for his children’s education. Thinking about this educational and financial setback frustrates Ernest and he knows that in order to achieve his goals of financial stability for both himself and his children, he needs to go back to school. He has fallen behind on his child support payments and confides, “I spent a lot of time laying awake at night thinking about how am I going to make this bill or that bill, and knowing that I needed to get back to school.” His own educational setbacks have motivated a strong commitment to the education of his non custodial children. Ernest explains how he aims to do more to save for his children’s education;

Aspirations for Children’s EducationMy children’s education. That’s what my savings will most likely

be for. Everything, I mean, I’m doing what I want to do for me as well, but everything that I do is really revolved around how it’s going to benefit my children later on. I haven’t always been in the position to do all the things that I wanted to do or needed to do for them, because of my, you know, drug abuse history and the accident where I lost the vision in my left eye and subsequently had to have it removed, so I’m finally getting myself in the position to be able to do those things and that’s really all I’m focused on is making sure that when the time comes that they don’t have to go through the struggles that I went through trying to get education. I would like it to be that there’s a trust fund already set up, I’ve been paying into it for 25 years already, and now you’re ready to go to school and there’s the money. You know, that’s the way I would like it to be.

Barriers to Father InvolvementCo-parenting SupportGatekeepingRepartnering and Multiple Partner FertilityDomestic Violence: The Deal BreakerDistanceLimited access and visitation

Unmarried-no parenting timeDivorced-standardized visitation

IncarcerationStreet Life

Policy ReformsSlow and steady progress in muting the adverse effects

of automated child support enforcement on vulnerable fathers, (e.g., proposed rule changes)Incarceration as voluntary unemploymentLowering fees for medications of child support ordersCompromise arrears (mainly for TANF cases, poor

fathers, and ex-offenders)Federal participation in financing job servicesParenting-Time

But these changes are more likely to provide relief to chronically unemployed than working-poor fathers

To Help Working-Poor Among Vulnerable Fathers Need

An NCP_EITC more generous than programs in NY and Washington, DC Use of a generously interpreted self support reserve to enable them

to meet the full compliance criteria. Allow temporary modifications while attending community college

to helps them achieve wage growth overtime. Lower fees for modifications and modification conferences with

non-TANF, custodial mothersHigher means test for participation in Assets for Independence

Because they their employment wills stabilize, even at lower wages, after the recession, they can take advantage of matched savings

Tie participation to child savings accounts and arrears compromise arrangements with non-TANF custodial mothers.

Expand access and visitation and access to keep them in the game.