I love what readers of this blog are doing with it: it becomes a place where experiences, and sometimes solutions, are exchanged.
Yesterday, comments of a reader immersed me back deep into the Dickensian world of New York State family laws, in 2012.
Let’s summarize: She’s a non-custodial parent living on Social Security disability benefits; her ex-husband too. As a veteran, he gets disability benefits for their dependent son. It does not matter. She has to pay child support no matter what. Any earnings in addition to disability benefits -strictly limited by law- are garnished: that’s part of the bureaucratic recklessness rooted in the sheer imbecility of the State’s child support laws. When she asks for a refund, the State takes its time and its cut: child support overpayments are never entirely refunded. Only in New York State!
At this point, another reader mentioned bill S4547 introduced by New York State Senator Ken LaValle. I did not know about it. Thanks. I immediately googled it.
A smart fellow once said politics is the art of the possible. As New York State family laws goes, the possible is not much. The bill basically amounts to putting a band aid on a gaping wound. It requires a reduction of a child support’s obligation by the amount of social security benefits received by the child (conditional upon a case by case examination by family courts: good luck!).
Sure, the bill will help my reader, who should not be in this situation in the first place. Has it occurred to lawmakers that recipients of social security disability benefits do not exactly belong to the 1%? And that our reader would not be that distressed, if her child support payments were not a flat share of her gross income, regardless how low her income is?
Kenneth LaValle and colleagues on the other side of the aisle need to get some ambition. The State family laws can be reformed, deeply. It has happened in Britain and Australia, who had as crummy family laws as in the State. The guiding plot: joint-custody and child support payments based on both parents’ income.
Meanwhile, readers, stay safe: don’t marry, and most of all, don’t divorce in New York State!
It only makes sense to allow a reduction. SSDI is only received after years of gainful employment. The benefit given to dependants are technically income, which was pre-taxed while the worker was still employed.
This is insanity. I am have become disabled and mother of my children gets the benefits for the children and child support from me. The amount she receives now exceeds my total benefit by 25%. I now receive too much to receive food stamps, energy assistance, or medicaid, but not enough to afford my medication. She is buying new cars and going on vacations while I struggle to survive. A possible reason this situation is perpetuated is the parties being victimized aren’t very numerous and there is a society disdain for those on disability due to its frequent abuse. The mistreatment of this vulnerable population is a poor reflection on NY State.
The game changer can be to sign a petition and send to house of representative and White House
This barbaric law against good fathers needs to be changed
Your signature can help make a change
http://signon.org/sign/can-the-barbaric-dead
It’s these law makers who want to do all for these women and the kids don’t even see that money so these women lay on their backs all day but I have low income do to my disably they are going to turn men to gay
It’s like how does it make sense that they get dependent benfits but ny family court don’t see it as child support but yet ur ssdi benfits is seen as income which dependent comes from that so that should be seen as child support benfits senates need to start working on a bill on this crap already for all states
Fyi, New York is the ONLY STATE that does not reduce child support by the amount of SSDI dependent benefits received (When non-custodial parent is disabled). Possibly it is believed it would put more custodial parents and children on welfare. Forty nine other states don’t see it that way. New York falsely prides itself on being legislatively progressive. This is bunk. New York State legislation resides in the stone ages.
It doesn’t matter what is being said in the CSSA. The Courts are not following the CSSA. So until Courts are held accountable to follow the CSSA, which is not being done by either the Appellate Court or the Court of Appeals (I know for a fact, it happened in our case) there is no sense in adding more to the CSSA.
Valarie, since you are probably in a position to benefit from this injustice I give you a lot of credit for rallying around this cause. It indicates you are a very enlightened person who truly cares about the best interest of your children through your concern for the well being of and justice served to their father.
Please help us to enforce our Amendment 14 !!! Modern day slavery still exists!!! How does New York Family Court get away with such blatant abuse and infringement upon our Civil Rights with reckless abandonment without the necessary checks and balances from the municipalities of the higher courts? I might as well go back to the hottest of days of atrocities of picking cotton on the plantation fields and feeling the warm wrath of the master’s whip across my back as, at the very least, I would know that within the midst of such atrocities I would have a roof over my head and left over slops to eat in order to survive upon. How does such an unjust legal system brazenly thrive and feed off of such social injustices in our modern day society while everyone keeps a straight face about it in our way of life system!!!
I live in Florida and my ex lives in New York with my son as I am in the midst of a bitter child custody battle where I pay all of my attorney’s expenses because I made 38,000 as a teacher and my ex gets a free attorney because she claims to make below the thresh hold of what is acceptable for a pro bono lawyer. I faithfully paid my child support including rears of a little over $700 dollars a month. My job, through no fault of my own, down graded me to the status of a substitute teacher in which cut my salary by a little over 60%. Florida law states that as a probationary teacher I can be released, without just cause of my own. To make matters worse my former boss refuses to sign off on reinstating my teacher’s license, leaving me with only my substitute license, and doesn’t have to give a reason for it in which prevents me from finding another teaching job of a similar fashion else where. I immediately filed for a downgrade in child support and when I faced the judge she told me that my down grade as a substitute teacher wasn’t acceptable at $11.06 an hour, while my ex makes $15.00 an hour comfortably living at home with her parents who take care of our son. The judge demanded that I go out and find a job to replace my lost wages. When I asked her how was I to accomplish such a task in an economy where its hard enough to find a job without a specialty or license, in which I’ve lost, much less find a job that pays $26.00 dollars an hour she said she couldn’t tell me how!!! Meanwhile I must wait for my next court date as upwards of 65% of my income continues to be taken out of my newly reduced income and back pay of the rears continues to climb upwards while I prove that I am actively searching for lost income. The Federal minimum wage in this country is $7.25 an hour where as in Florida, where I live, the minimum wage is higher than the Federal wage at $7.93 an hour. What the court is essentially demanding is that I’m suppose to find a job that pays more than what my job has downgraded me to of $11.06, which is still higher than the highest minimum wage in California of $10.74 dollars, without a specialty skill that’s been revoked through no given fault of my own!!! This is coercion and tramples upon our 14 Amendment rights!!!
In case you’re not familiar with the specificities of that 14th Amendment it states the following in Section 1.
SECTION 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
If these words are to be held, believed, and tried as truth then they must manifest themselves to be held as truth in our New York Family Court which is enforcing arbitrary laws that are financially crippling and unjust to the privileges of American citizens to live or survive!!! They are openly and shamelessly depriving us of our liberties through forcing us to go out and hopelessly find better jobs to feed the gluttony of the bottomless bellies of their broken and inadequate New York Court System. Child support should be based on my earned income. For example, if I was married to my ex the earnings I would bring home, along with her earnings, is what our child would be living off of and not my earning “Potential”. However, New York Child Support has been given the right to garnish the wages of the noncustodial parent upwards topping 65% of our gross income based on earning “Potential”. This is a cop out, of course, as to continue to draw the same amount out of the noncustodial parent’s pay regardless of salary reduction that satisfies their unquenchable thirst at the mercy of the noncustodial parent who are, more often than not, struggling to financially take care of their children and earn a decent living.
There is no due process of law as a New York Family Court can deprive you of your life through unlawful imprisonment, stripping you of any licenses to work or drive in order to survive, and brazenly trample upon our social liberties if monetary means of what they deem is, most often than not, arbitrary and unfair. How is it the parent’s fault if they cannot find a job to adequately supplement a previously higher paying job when 26% or 35 million Americans make $10.55 or less an hour and 6% or 8 million Americans are unemployed. In case you didn’t add that up that is 32% of Americans or 42 million Americans that earn less than what I earn as a substitute so I’m essentially being demanded to go out and find what only 58% of Americans are able to obtain and enjoy through specialized skills and or licenses. There is no “equal protection” of law as most often the noncustodial parents are left out of the unequal equation of basic human rights. As of right now I can no longer afford my attorney and legal fees in my child custody case in which are strangling me, which will leave me stuck with these exorbitant fees even if I find an alternative means through pro bono work now that I qualify for an attorney because of my loss in income. Please help in doing your part to mail your state congressman and or mail letters to our Supreme courts. These outrageous laws of servitude of slavery must be abolished!!! Fathers can go to a petition online to sign off on at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/can-the-barbaric-dead.