For now, Frandy’s mother continues to help him with his child support. His grandmother has stepped in to cover the monthly legal fees associated with his arrests. “If I didn’t have family support, I would be beyond struggling,” Frandy said.
Many noncustodial fathers in his situation aren’t so lucky. More aggressive child support enforcement was a key component of welfare reform in the 1990s, said Boggess, of the family-policy center. Because the welfare system was designed to act as a sort of “surrogate husband” to single mothers, the government looked to fathers as a way to get people off the dole, she said.
Now, men across the country owe $111 billion in unpaid child support, according to the Office of Child Support Enforcement. Many have racked up debts in the tens of thousands, Boggess said. But most, like Frandy, make less than $10,000 a year. “These men can’t pay,” she said.
Even if a man can come up with the cash, it may not benefit his children, said Kristin Harknett, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. If a woman receives government cash assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, any money her children’s father contributes is earmarked to pay back the government.
In some ways, child-support enforcement is actually having a negative effect on children, Harknett said. Mothers often keep fathers from spending time with their children to encourage them to pay up. Many fathers go underground to avoid doing jail time for falling into arrears. Often, as in Frandy’s case, other impoverished family members pick up the bill. “Basically we give money to one poor person, and then we find the nearest poor person connected to that child and ask for it back,” Harknett said.