I think there’s a huge difference between “incent” and “pick up the full tab and then some extra”.
I have no problem with some level of social programs. I’ve always been a big believer in and supporter of public schools, as an example.
I think the current hodgepodge of social programs and welfare cliffs is a mess though, and needs a complete overhaul.
You keep saying things like this, but I’m not sure it actually happens in reality. Your earlier example did not support this statement. Can you provide an example where this actually happens?
Humans being humans though, usually means that the overhaul leads to a new hodgepodge.
I guess I should re-phrase that since I included a non-government source.
“make it so the financial cost of having a child is negative for some custodial parents”
How about that?
Also note that I neglected to include some government benefits in my last example, such as state income tax, which of course varies (tremendously) by state. In some states the difference between kid and no kid on state income tax is precisely $0 because they have a flat tax rate or no income tax at all. In other states it’s a four-figure amount. AK has the permanent fund dividend, which is different from income tax, of course, but a substantial government-paid benefit.
I’m not sure that change makes your statement accurate. Indy questioned your SNAP calculation up above. If you have to mention AK, you may be inching further out on a very thin branch. 
It’s absolutely fine to share your opinion that government programs for the poor provide too much $. But you seems to be stating as fact that the birth of a child is either financially neutral or profitable for a single parent. I do not think that is true, even when considering child support. Honestly, I still don’t understand your emphasis on child support, although it may be due to my own bias as a child of divorce who watched my mother struggle to rebuild her financial life.
I’m curious, how does all this translate to a low income family with a stay-at-home parent?
Government programs are typically much more generous to single parents than married ones, so I doubt that many, if any, married parents have a negative financial cost to raising children. If there are, they would be extremely poor and most likely significantly better off getting a paper divorce. I’m not even certain that it would be possible to concoct an example, but it might be. Probably a liberal state with a generous state-level EITC, or Alaska with the permanent fund dividend.
Hmmm, I was mostly basing it off Oregon programs, but I excluded the Oregon income tax benefits.
I used this website to get the SNAP estimate: https://sharedsystems.dhsoha.state.or.us/SNAP_Estimate/frmEstimate.cfm
I believe the inputs I used were:
2 people
No to all questions
Income: $1,900
Other income $300 (child support)
Rent: $900
Pay for heat
Childcare: $433 (I guessed $100 a week since y’all pointed out that Head Start isn’t all day)
That yields a SNAP benefit of $240/month or $2,880/year, which I rounded.
Okay. Playing a little with the site, it appears that they assume $300/mo for heat. So rent+heat= $1,200/mo. I’m not sure if you assumed a bigger apartment for parent+child than for the parent alone. The OR benefits seem a little more generous than what I found.
Paid child care is now $5,200/yr, which chews up most of the tax advantage of having a child. Not surprising.
It looks like the custodial parent gets about $255 from the gov’t + $300 from the other parent to cover all the marginal costs of a child (including food) except for childcare while the parent works and medical care covered by Medicaid.
I’m not seeing a lot of profit here.
I’m also having trouble with the other parent. If the custodial parent didn’t really want a child but couldn’t pass up the profit opportunity, how was that explained to the other parent who is now on the hook for $300/mo for 18 years?
Again, I can see that benefits are enough to make a potential parent who wants a child (maybe not right now), decide to go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy instead of getting an abortion. But it’s quite a lift to think that someone who doesn’t want a child would have one just because it’s possible (not certain) that they might come out a couple hundred better off per month.
YES
That’s only counting SNAP and (FIT - daycare).
I also specifically mentioned Section 8 housing (which I don’t think the person qualifies for without the kid), plus I mentioned but didn’t calculate the benefit from WIC (which they definitely qualify for: income guideline there is over $32K) which a quick Google search indicates is worth $50-$150 a month, starting when Mom gets pregnant and ending when the kid turns 5. So figure 5.5 years allowing Mom some time to figure out that she’s pregnant and apply for it. I don’t know much about WIC except what I recall from my ex-boyfriend’s sister getting it. I know they provide formula for babies, so I’m guessing that’s the reason for the wide range of value. I think formula is pretty expensive and I assume that it doesn’t go the whole 5.5 years. But it’s clearly a program with a non-trivial value, at any rate. And once the kid is in school he/she will get free breakfasts & lunches, although to be fair my understanding is that the free breakfasts are pretty crappy food (pre-packaged donuts, pop-tarts, that sort of thing) that you might not want your kid subsisting off of. Anyway that’s got value too. Even if you don’t let your kid eat the breakfasts, the lunches are subject to stricter nutritional guidelines.
No explanation would be necessary. If you are the non-custodial biological parent of a child you are on the hook for child support, end of story. The custodial parent does not need to explain why the non-custodial parent needs to pay it.
I know some people on here think the non-custodial parent shouldn’t have to pay it if he/she doesn’t want to, but that’s a different topic. The fact is, they have to.
You can’t get blood from a stone, and the non custodial parent doesn’t always pay child support. It’s harder to avoid paying it now than it was when my husband’s father moved out of state to avoid paying it. But there are still plenty of non-custodial parents who don’t contribute.
You specified that this individual with a $2,200 monthly income pays $900 for rent and also pays heat (which OR seems to deem at $300/mo). That generates “excess housing expense” for SNAP. I figured that’s too much for Section 8. If Section 8 is available (not always the case) I think it would reduce housing below the SNAP threshold.
Section 8 is theoretically a program that could generate a “profit” from a child. But, this prospective parent has to believe he/she can make it to the top of the waiting list, then find a landlord with an acceptable building/location willing to accept Section 8 vouchers. Also, I’m wondering if this person who isn’t really that excited about having a child is willing to share space with the baby, and may want as a minimum another bedroom. So Section 8 may simply offset the marginal cost of the larger apartment.
Yes, it appears that at least in some states parents can get both SNAP and WIC. I’m not sure how the numbers work out.
So how does this pregnancy occur? You seem to be imagining a woman who wants to have a baby to make a profit, fails to tell the man that she is trying to get pregnant, and intends to sue for child support when the baby comes. Or, she finds a man who wants a baby on those terms?
(In the TV show Shameless, Debbie has a friend who has done this multiple times. It appears that she is so successful that she doesn’t qualify for gov’t aid - she is scamming the men not the gov’t. But, that’s a TV show.)
I have even more trouble seeing how a man would make this work – find a woman to bear his child then sue her for child support after he gets custody?
I think you might need to retake 9th grade health if you need me to answer this question.
Every custodial parent is 100% entitled to child support from the non-custodial parent. Whether the non-custodial parent agreed to have a child is irrelevant.
So if a woman gets pregnant - whether on purpose or by accident - and keeps the baby, she is legally entitled to child support from the biological father. It doesn’t matter if the father agreed to have the baby. It doesn’t matter if he wanted her to have an abortion and she refused. It doesn’t matter if it was a one-night stand or an ongoing relationship. It doesn’t matter whether the mother was using birth control and the birth control failed or if she claimed she was on birth control pills and she wasn’t or if the condom broke.
All of these things might matter in how you view the ethics of the mother, or whether she deserves child support according to your personal value system. They do not affect what she is legally entitled to, however.
Most single custodial parents are biological mothers, certainly. It would be vastly more difficult for a man to make this work if the mother wasn’t on board.
I understand the biology and the law. My issue was ethics.
This woman is cynically using gov’t rules to make a profit off the baby that she doesn’t want all that much. But, the gov’t is a faceless, far away bureaucracy.
Now, she is also cynically using this man that she’s having sex with, so that she can get child support from him. And, she doesn’t really need the child support to pay the child’s costs, that’s the “profit” margin in the scheme. The man is a real human, who she knows well enough to identify him when time comes to sue for support.
From a public policy perspective, the question is how many people like this we have. I expect at least one somewhere in the US. But, I think the numbers are low enough, especially now that we’ve added this additional level of cynicism, that they aren’t a big risk to the taxpayers.
Twig with a bone.
So moving along, how much off the family plan expenditure is “wasted” on mother’s cashing in on their uterus? 75%…25%…2%…001%..?
Because demonstrating that it is possible to game the system is hardly an argument for not adopting an otherwise sound policy. If it were, we would not have taxes, cuz it is too Easy to just not pay them. And I hope we can all agree that would be a dumb argument..just like some Police are bad, let’s cancel policing. Say what?
I’m sure it’s possible for mom to claim the baby, let it starve to death, then put it in a shoebox and bury it in the crawl space. A real money maker. I’m not going to base policy on a demented psychopath, thank you.
I’m not actually sure this has been demonstrated.
But I would agree with your statement that a small number of people gaming the system is not evidence that it shouldn’t happen.
Keep in mind that my numbers were based on the existing programs. I’ll have to look into how much more the American Families Plan adds to it.
Looks like the stuff that would directly impact my hypothetical mother would be:
additional money for free & reduced lunches over the summer
An additional $1,600 - $2,200 for Child Tax Credit depending on the age of the child.
$2,600 in Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit that the mother didn’t previously get because it didn’t used to be refundable.
So call it $3,500 plus the value of the summer meals. Maybe $3,750?