The subject of child support is a very touchy one in the black community. Don’t believe me? Just bring it up at your next get together, no matter if you have an all male, female, or mixed audience. Tempers are bound to flare as people start to voice their opinions and state the facts of their real life examples.

Personally, I don’t understand how anyone doesn’t take care of their child and need the courts to get involved, but as I have learned more about child support, welfare laws and had my friends remind me that I am lucky not to have children outside my marriage, I have learned that everything isn’t always as cut and dry as I assume.

The Financial Challenges of Child Support

According to UWM Professssor of social welfare David Pate, child support is the cause of a major amount of debt black men carry in their lives. This is something I never thought about, but Pate does a good job bringing it to our attention.

One of the major reasons for this problem is illuminated at the intersection of two other major issues in the black community. We have a high rate of unmarried black families, 75% according to him, and a significantly high unemployment rate in the black community and particularly among black men. Where these facts intersect draws great financial stress and trouble for those caught in the web.

Something else I wasn’t aware of is in some States, if the mother receives economic assistance or welfare, then she is required to participate in the child support program. This means naming the father, providing his information and forcing him to contribute up to 25% of his income, if he has any, to her household.

Due to the factors Pate illuminated above, this can be a major challenge for black fathers around the world who are facing the highest unemployment rates in the country.

“When they don’t have a job and they have this child support debt that’s clicking every day, it accumulates and it gets to be a significant debt for them and it also has significant interest attached to it,” Pate says.

A break is given to low-income fathers, but Nino Rodriguez of Madison’s Center for Family Policy and Practice the cut-off is about $13,000 annually – too low, in his opinion.

“The debate about well how do you handle the situation of parents with very low incomes, in one sense is really about how poor are we willing to, in terms of public policy, make these people,” he says. “It’s more about how far are we going to push them into poverty.”

It is sad to think there are a generation of men being buried under these child support laws and bills, but at the same time we have to make sure the babies you are making are taken care of. It is unfair for the sole burden to fall squarely on the mother’s when it took two to make the baby.

Working on lowering the unemployment rate and getting better jobs could help in this situation, but that is going to take some time. Time many of these young children caught in the cross fire just don’t have. And we haven’t even approached the some times toxic relationships where the mother and father can’t even be in the same room with one another. It is a sad state of affairs, but something must be done.

Our babies are being caught in the cross fire.

What are your thoughts?

Source: http://wuwm.com/post/analysts-child-support-adds-many-black-fathers-debt-load