These Single Moms Are Forced to Choose: Reveal Their Sexual Histories or Forfeit Welfare

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.propublica.org/article/to-get-public-assistance-these-single-mothers-are-forced-to-share-intimate-details-about-their-families

In July, a form arrived in the mail notifying Sanchez that if she wanted a small amount of aid — $357 a month — to help pay her motel bill and replace her possessions, she needed to list her baby’s father’s current and former addresses; his employer’s address; his vehicle’s make, model, year, color and license plate number and the state where it was registered; his bank account number; any real estate or other assets he might have; and the addresses of his mother, father and other relatives and friends. She was also asked to provide, under penalty of perjury, the date she believed she got pregnant and why she believed that to be the correct date.

The state of New Mexico, in accordance with the 1996 welfare reform law, intended to use these details to find the dad and force him to make child support payments — much of which the state would then pocket as reimbursement for providing Sanchez with welfare.

But Sanchez has a fragile co-parenting relationship with Avery’s father that she worries could be torn apart by such a disclosure. He’s been driving into Albuquerque most weekends from outside the city to spend time with their daughter, which is a tentatively positive situation, she said. He is in recovery from a drug addiction, and Avery has started calling him “dada.”

If Sanchez outs him to child support agents, she worries, they could suspend his driver’s license for failing to make timely payments — and he’d no longer be able to visit his family, which she fears might cause him to relapse.

[marybourg]

1. Fathers, not taxpayers, should support their children if at

all possible. Here, the State has a duty to taxpayers to ensure that this father does that, if possible. I don’t see any reason why this couple should be exempt from the ordinary rules of living in a society. Sorry.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. .

For struggling mothers in New Mexico, a state that often ranks last in the U.S. in child poverty and well-being, this federal requirement means that they must either forgo desperately needed assistance for their children or risk complicating what are often already fraught, and sometimes abusive, relationships with their children’s fathers, if they’re even in contact with them.

It also means that contrary to the popular understanding of child support — that it is intended to go to children —​ more than $1.7 billion in child support collected from fathers in 2020 was seized by federal and state governments as repayment for mothers and children having been on welfare, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal Office of Child Support Enforcement statistics. Close to 3 million of the nation’s poorest families had child support taken from them last year, amid the pandemic, for this reason. (Most other child support cases are initiated through a divorce or a legal action by the mother; for the majority that don’t involve a mom who has received TANF, the money does go to the kids.)

[marybourg]

9. The taxpayer-supplied money already went to the kids.

The state then reimburses itself, if possible. Sorry, but don’t see anything wrong with this. Many New Mexico taxpayers are working two and three jobs and supporting their own children and dealing with their own relationship issues.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Calling that 'revealing their sexual history' is a bit disingenuous

It's about the child, not the woman's sex life.

I've also never heard of someone's DL getting suspended for non-support. Pretty sure that doesn't happen.

I appreciate her concern for the man and his relationship with their child, his recovery, etc, but ... the state does have a compelling interest.

And taking responsibility and owing up to your obligations is, arguably, an important part of recovery.

Not sure I can find much to get perturbed about in this set of circumstances, personally.

Lastly "pocket as reimbursement" as if that's somehow nefarious? That's how it works everywhere AFAIK. They're not 'pocketing' it, it's payback for money the state has paid out

[LanternWaste]

5. Dependent on state, it does happen. Quite often in fact.

"Pretty sure that doesn't happen..."

BTW: Is anyone asking you to feel perturbance?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

7. Did I say anyone was asking me to feel perturbance?

I was essentially pointing out that I'm okay with it, in slightly different nomenclature.

Is that okay with you?

AFA Licenses goes, you got me! I did not know that. THAT perturbs me, more than anything else in this article.

There's lots of other ways of forcing deadbeats to pay, and most of them I *DO* support.

But not that one. That's fucked up IMHO.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. .

She was also asked to provide, under penalty of perjury, the date she believed she got pregnant and why she believed that to be the correct date.

I've also never heard of someone's DL getting suspended for non-support. Pretty sure that doesn't happen.

All 50 states have statutory or administrative provisions authorizing the suspension or revocation of various licenses for failure to pay child support. The licenses affected generally are driver's, occupational, professional (e.g., law), business and recreational (e.g., hunting and fishing). Each state imposes its own criteria for the amount of arrears the obligor (the person who owes child support) must owe for a license to be suspended or revoked and the amount of time the obligor must be delinquent before suspension or revocation occurs. Related provisions include procedures to halt revocation proceedings, reinstate licenses and issue temporary or restricted licenses. ([link:https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/license-restrictions-for-failure-to-pay-child-support.aspx|)

"And taking responsibility and owing up to your obligations is, arguably, an important part of recovery."

“It distorts the meaning of child support: You’re asking parents to ‘support their children,’ and then you take the money?” said Vicki Turetsky, who served as the federal child support commissioner during the Obama administration, and who, a mother herself, once received public assistance. “It sours everybody on the purpose of child support, and the purpose of government.”

"Not sure I can find much to get perturbed about in this set of circumstances, personally."

More than a dozen mothers in New Mexico spoke to ProPublica about their experiences with cash assistance, as did former Human Services Department lawyers and caseworkers who handled welfare applications. The moms described it as humiliating and sometimes terrifying to be questioned about their sexual histories by agents of the state, in small interview rooms, just to obtain a basic form of government help. Some were required to submit their children to genetic testing in order to receive aid.
Others fear domestic violence or emotional abuse if they name fathers to the authorities. Caseworkers from multiple states shared instances of mothers saying that dads had threatened to retaliate by killing or kidnapping the mom or her child.

One worker not in New Mexico said in an email that in a recent case, an absent father told a woman applying for public assistance that “if she ever mentions his name on anything, that is the last time she would ever be able to say his name.”

For many mothers, though, the harm is subtler: Fathers may retaliate by withholding informal support, like cash, gifts to the kids or babysitting help. Or a mother may know that her former partner is in a precarious financial situation, and would be ruined by the government garnishing up to 65% of his paycheck — and threatening him with jail time if he can’t or won’t pay up.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

8. As I just posted in response to Lantern, I didn't know about the license part

I shared my feeling on that. I think it's bullshit.

So, let me ask ... otherwise ... it it your position that every woman who has a child, who doesn't want to tell 'the state' who the father is, for WHATEVER arbitrary reason, at her own discretion ... should just be able to say 'fuck off I'm not telling you about my sex life' ... and the father is then magically off the hook forever, and the burden of 1/2 of the assistance (if needed) should simply fall upon the taxpayers ... for up to 18 years?

That about the size of it?

AFA this part goes:
“It distorts the meaning of child support: You’re asking parents to ‘support their children,’ and then you take the money?” said Vicki Turetsky, who served as the federal child support commissioner during the Obama administration, and who, a mother herself, once received public assistance. “It sours everybody on the purpose of child support, and the purpose of government.”

The details of how that works are important here. When the government takes your money in the way described, it's because you're in debt to the government. They've been paying the person caring for the child, in your stead.

It's debatable whether it 'should work like this', but it's not unequivocally 'wrong' IMHO.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. I believe that people who need help should get it, and that putting barriers in their way is shit.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

15. So, that's a 'Yes' to the question as I asked it?

Because what you just answered is essentially saying 'Yes' to that question.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. Yep, because welfare and child support should be separate. Welfare is not a loan for child support a

parent isn't collecting.

[FBaggins]

25. You seem to have confused TANF with other support programs

The mother may qualify for welfare or food stamps based on her own needs… but TANF is:

The TANF program… assists families with children when the parents or other responsible relatives cannot provide for the family's basic needs

It is entirely appropriate for the government to determine whether the parents can provide or not.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

32. Okay I'm starting to understand the argument you're making ...

But isn't the amount of welfare you're entitled to ... tied to your total income, including child support?

And, hence, the 'loan' portion ... would be the extra welfare money that the State paid out ... because deadbeat baby-daddy was lowering the women's income by X dollars, thus increasing the welfare by Y dollars?

Is that not how it works? Because it seems to me like that's how it would. And hence would be the reason for the state's compelling interest in 'who is the baby daddy'. The state would be, in effect, 'loaning baby-daddy' Y dollars when he doesn't pay (for whatever reason).

Or do I have that wrong? Not an expert in these matters.

[FBaggins]

17. Then why post the article?

It’s a story about making sure that the people who need help get it. Which necessarily includes identifying that they do, in fact, need help.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

21. Because it's an article about the barriers people have to hurdle to get help.

[FBaggins]

28. Including imaginary barriers to make it a good story

Nobody is asking her to “reveal her sexual history”. They don’t ask how many partners she has or how often she has sex or what positions she likes best or when she lost her virginity. They just want to know who the father is.

Which is entirely reasonable. The fact that pregnancy results from sex and they need to know who the other parent is doesn’t make it “revealing your sexual history.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

30. Saying when you had sex and why you think someone may be the father is definitely

sexual history.

[FBaggins]

31. Nonsense.

The program is explicitly for families with children.

Everyone therefore know that someone had sex with the mother. That’s inherent in applying for the program in the first place. You can’t ask for money to help with your child’s needs and pretend that you have no idea where children come from.

Note that none of those questions need to be answered if the mother and father are applying for the assistance. It’s only when there is a potentially deadbeat dad who needs to be tracked down (and not even then in the case of rape/incest or if then child could be endangered by the revelation).

But that isn’t the case here. In this case there is a father who should be taking responsibility for his actions and she wants to let him off the hook.

[Shrike47]

3. When I worked for AFDC in LA County in the 1960s we were demanding most of that information.

The idea is that other people shouldn’t have to support their child. Individual needs are not taken into consideration (although the number of women ‘got drunk at a party and didn’t know’ was amazing. In other words, there was a lot of lying and I never pushed it.

[FBaggins]

10. She doesn't have a right to determine whether the father should support his child

Or rather… she does if she’s willing and able to let him off the hook. But she doesn’t have the right to do so for the rest of us.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. What if the father long ago disappeared?

[marybourg]

16. They try to find him. If they can't, the taxpayer is on the hook.

[msongs]

13. sounds like the amount of details is over the top. who would know all those things

especially if the pregnancy was a result of a quickie with a stranger or casual acquaintence ie
not as part of a committed relationship

[marybourg]

34. The detail is intended to ensure the state is not

chasing the wrong guy.

[ripcord]

14. I don't see a problem with this

Fathers should be responsible for their kids.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

23. Treating welfare as a loan to be paid back through child support is not the way to do it.

That just hurts kids.

[ripcord]

24. The mothers should have been getting child support all along

If the mother knows who the father is and do chooses welfare over making him pay I have no sympathy, if the deadbeat dad had been paying there would have been no need for the less than $400 payments.

[BoycottTimHortons]

18. What if the child was conceived from a rape?

Especially in a state where abortion is legally or otherwise restricted?

[FBaggins]

19. Then the identification requirements do not apply

Also true in the case of incest or if the child might be harmed physically or emotionally as a result of the investigation

[BoycottTimHortons]

22. So do they require evidence of some sort to turn down this request

Or is saying that your child was not conceived consensually enough? I promise I am not asking these questions in bad faith, I just want to know how do they avoid harming single moms in precarious situations with their children’s father. I understand making sure fathers are not abdicating their financial responsibilities, but the level of detail they demand makes me uncomfortable.

[ripcord]

27. The problem is that this mother knows who the father is

She is worried about him relapsing so she is choosing welfare over holding him responsible, remember that she is choosing welfare.

[FBaggins]

33. Close... but it's actually worse than that

It would be one thing for her to decide to hold him responsible or not.

But this is her making the decision for us.

Note that it’s entirely possible that “we” (the government) should agree not to hold him accountable. But that’s our decision not hers.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

36. Worse yet, if the woman chooses to have that baby, all too often the "father"

can claim parental rights. That's despicable.

I understand a woman choosing to have the baby. That is exactly what choice is all about. But the rapist claiming parental rights? I'm quite glad I was never ever in that kind of situation.

[WarGamer]

26. Naming the man who (should) bears financial responsibility is forced revelation of sexual history?

Hmmm... I'm getting old.

[dsc]

29. The amount of detail seems rather over the top

I understand the idea that fathers should pay for their children when they can, but I will say I don't really have a huge problem with my tax money going to support those children. Unless and until states start going after companies that get tax credits and don't fulfill their obligations they can tax all the seats.

[GulfCoast66]

37. A father has a legal and moral obligation to financially support their child.

If they won’t do it willingly the state has a compelling reason to force it. Or to force them to pay the state back for doing his job.

Whether or not this is the best way to achieve it I can’t say. I have no experience in this area

But I get very suspicious of any articles or argument against them having to do so. Down on his luck? Doing drugs? Not employable? Not my problem.

The mother sure does not have the ability to skip out. Or rather they never or seldom do so. They just dig in, fight and find a way. Every fucking time. If not the mom, the grand mom.

It take more than this tear jerker article to make me feel sympathy for a dead beat dad. They always have a fucking excuse for not being able to support the child. Always. Most of us have known them personally. Everyone I’ve know are total pieces of shit. Working for cash and having no official income.