A creative way to collect delinquent child support payments

On July 1, 2021, a law went into effect in Utah which denied hunting and fishing licenses to deadbeat dads.

Since then, almost 3,000 licenses have been denied to applicants who subsequently coughed up $9.9 million in overdue child support payments.

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graphite · 61-69, M

"deadbeat dads" - Most men behind in child support payments earn poverty-level wages; if a man loses his job or otherwise suffers a loss of income, it is very difficult to get the amount lowered; meanwhile, the debt piles up, along with fees and other surcharges. I've heard of a guy who, even though his kids spent lots of time with him, the court did not care and threw him into jail anyway. Family courts only care how much you can pay - that's it.
While the judicial system is quick to throw men in jail for inability to pay, it usually looks the other way when mothers deny fathers access to their children; there's no money in enforcing visitation orders. The government, with its draconian rules, creates "deadbeat dads."

nedkelly · 61-69, M

@graphite or paying for some else's child as she slept around like a dog on heat

DrWatson · 70-79, M

@graphiteWhile I am sure there are plenty of cases like the ones you describe, it sounds to me like the 3,000 men who wanted to hunt and fish were able to come up with the money just fine.

graphite · 61-69, M

@DrWatson Often, elderly parents fork over their retirement funds to cover their sons' child support debt and keep them out of jail. And we don't know how many of these men didn't want to pay because they are unable to see their children. The image of the deadbeat dad cruising around in his Porsche, trophy wife in tow, while his ex-wife and kids starve is myth. And 70-80% of divorces are filed by women, often for no reason other than being "unfulfilled in the relationship."

graphite · 61-69, M

@nedkelly Exactly - lots and lots and lots of men stuck paying child support for kids that aren't even theirs.

DrWatson · 70-79, M

@graphite I have known both kinds of families personally. I know men who are paying when it seems to me they should not be, and I know mothers and children who have been abruptly abandoned. While I feel sympathy for the men in the first situation, that does not lessen my disgust for men in the second.

graphite · 61-69, M

@DrWatson You mean the tiny minority, who are falsely branded as the majority thanks to popular myth.

UnderLockDown · M

@graphite The system forces fathers into a nightmare situation, I've watched it happen. Most fathers are seen, by the courts, as nothing more than a debt slave and a scapegoat.