California lawmakers pushed a budget to stop collecting child support from some parents who receive cash, but the proposed solution was to remove those debtors in January. It is far from what you are defending.

Parliamentary Household Supplementary Security Income or State Supplementary Payments which are a combination of SSI / SSP and Social Security for parents who are the only source of income from immigrant cash programs to the state, no debt to families Disability insurance benefits that cover the debts owed reduce or eliminate, or Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits.

Proposals may break through a small subset of Californians owed to the government for child support.The state has not told Cal Matters the exact number of people receiving child support, and it is unclear whether the state has that number.

With that in mind, the Senate Spending Commission says that eliminating all overdue child support debts would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and lay off 98 full-time workers for child support. Finding that the General Fund saves only $ 3.7 million will help those who work in child recovery.

The proposal has yet to be negotiated with the Newsom administration.

Finding More Child Support Debt Relief

“We’re not going to run out of money to pay our families, we’re just going to pay the state,” said Senator Susan Eggman of the Stockton Democratic Party. Senate Budget Subcommittee Hearing on last month’s proposal.

Still, the defenders of the poor asked the state to go further by canceling old bad debts. And the current proposal leaves the 10% state interest rate on child support debts. This is one of the highest rates of its kind in the country.

Jhumpa Bhattacharya, vice president of programs and strategy at Insight Center, based in Oakland, a nonprofit economic justice group, said, “You have to have the will.”

The theory of child support is that parents who do not have custody support their children with monthly payments. But how does it actually work for parents who are also receiving cash benefits from a temporary federal welfare (temporary aid to poor families) program known in California as CalWORKS? It’s not about doing it.

As Cal Matters and The Salinas Californian reported last month, California receives a portion of the child benefits paid to parents, usually mothers, of parents who receive these cash benefits. In some cases, this portion is more than half of the total payment. On the other hand, if a non-custodial parent is in arrears with child maintenance payments, the debt is built up at an interest rate of 10%.

Retained through old debts

Rosalinda Garcia, who lives in Fresno, was one of the parents without custody for a short time in 2003. Even though she paid thousands of dollars more than her original balance, she was still unable to repay her debt. And the man she is renting maintenance for, her grandfather Joe Garcia Montelongo, died in 2012 ..

When she asked the DCSS representative where her money was going, they told her: State.

It annoys them endlessly.

“I understand I have to pay my debts, but now is not the time,” said Garcia. “My young children shouldn’t have to suffer because of my old debts.”

Of the $ 13,000 Garcia was supposed to receive an unemployment check last year, less than $ 10,000 was in her bank account. She said the remainder was paid back to her grandfather for six months in 2003 after he took care of the two elders and intercepted them by the Child Support Department.

She initially owed about $ 4,000, but couldn’t afford it for years, so she left it out. However, interest continued to grow. Seventeen years later, even after paying more than $ 4,000 in the last year alone, she still has more than $ 2,000 in child support.

She also helped state agencies collect her first federal economic check, her $ 4,000 tax return, and five children still living at home. He said he caught the December economic supplement that he was supposed to get.

Misconceptions about high interest rates

The state itself is a report commissioned by a child support agency, scientists say. After 2003 at the latest A large part of this debt cannot be collected. If the state does not collect money from its parents, the state itself owes the federal government. Some states have started passing 100% family benefits, and Colorado has passed laws requiring states to repay the federal government.

Most states are like California, spending $ 100 on a family with one child and $ 200 on a family with two or more children. Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom rejected parliamentary action, saying the state needed money if it had abolished 10% interest rates in California.

Mr Batacharya said high interest rates continue to be misunderstood, that people pay off their debts faster or at all.

“But in reality this is just a debt that people cannot afford,” she said. “This is a debt that is mainly placed on black and brown low income earners, who are basically asked by the government to repay the safety net.

“They’re poor people and they can’t afford to pay at all, and now you’re charging an additional 10% interest, and that just adds up.”

California collects most of its maintenance debt

Last week, Governor Cal Matters’ office said “the income impact of ending child support collection” is “given the impact of ending child support collection,” Newsom said as he vetoed Congressional action , “To address this problem through a budgeting process”. I asked for it. “

It seems that day has come.

According to federal data, California retains a very high percentage of child support payments. That is more than 3.5 times the national average. It has a domino effect on parents responsible for their debts: struggling to find and keep a job, their driver’s license can be revoked, and children and non-custodial parents are more, I’ll get less.

“I know it can tear holes (financially) in the state,” Eggman said. So why not use it to take care of your family and not worry about the interests that arose in the past? “

This story is part of California Divide, a project by Cal Matters. Kate Cimini is a journalist for The Californianian. (831) Share your story at 776-5137 or email us [email protected] ..Apply Support local journalism.

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