Why child support in California isn’t going where it’s needed most
“I didn’t understand the way the system works. When low-income fathers make child-support payments, most of their payments go to paying back the government for the cost of public assistance received by the mother and child — for welfare, Medi-Cal or foster-care assistance. In California, for families that receive public assistance, only the first $50 of child support goes to the children. In 2017, $354 million in payments made by low-income parents went to the government, not to their children, according to a forthcoming report, ‘The Payback Problem,’ that my office co-authored with other California organizations.”