"Chris" wrote in message
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"Bob W" wrote in message
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"Kenneth S." wrote in message
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The November 4 Washington Post contained a story about a proposed
increase in Maryland child support guidelines. The following is an
e-mail that I sent to the reporter who wrote the story.




"There's a great deal of misunderstanding about child support.
Your story was clear and well-written, but in any future stories you
write about child support, I hope you will keep in mind the following
three points:

"(1) Apparently, Maryland officials are talking about "the first
increase in 20 years in recommended child support payments." However,
the fact is that the state's existing CS guidelines (like those of
most states) are tied to the incomes of parents. See
http://www.dhr.state.md.us/csea/help.php. So if parental income
rises, the child support amounts rise with it. If, on top of this,
the numbers in the state guidelines are raised, non-custodial parents
are being told that the state doesn't care about their ability to pay,
which is linked to their income levels.

The CS guidelines are based on social science research detailing the
expenditures for rearing children in intact families. If there are no
reported increases in the costs of rearing children, and I have seen
none, then increases in CS amounts are completely arbitrary without any
justification.

If anything, it would be my guess the current economic conditions are
causing the expenditures on children to decrease, which would then cause
the CS amounts to go down.

The total lack of social science research into the costs of raising
children by single parents is a disgrace. If the researchers were to
examine single parent expenditures on children they would be forced to
acknowledge the contributions made by both parents in their separate
households.

Not to mention, governments are givng themselves raises all across the
board. And they call this a "recession"? I get it; a recession for
everyone else EXCEPT them!

Oh come on, Chris, didn't you know that the (so-called) stimulus package
counts as a pay raise for NCP's?!?