The Obama administration recently announced new program that is supposed to help incarcerated fathers with their debt. The potentially forthcoming regulations will allow these fathers to “pause” their child support payments while they serve time in prison. According to reports, the politicians share different opinions on this subject. One side argues that single mothers may feel backlash from the government by reducing their welfare. While the other side believe, by delaying their child support, fathers will be able to finish their sentencing knowing that they will enter the free world with less debt. As it is now, federal inmates only make but so much money in prison. Federal inmates make up to an estimated $1.15 per hour. That’s clearly not enough to make most standard child support payments each month. The Washington Post reports: “I am fundamentally opposed to policies that allow parents to abdicate their responsibilities, which, in turn, results in more families having to go on welfare,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a speech in June on the Senate floor. Obama’s new regulations, he said, “would undermine a key feature of welfare reform, which is that single mothers can avoid welfare if fathers comply with child-support orders.” Administration officials and their supporters counter that billing fathers while they’re in prison does little but dig them deeper into debt. “Billing poor fathers doesn’t help poor mothers and kids become less poor,” said Jacquelyn Boggess, a poverty expert with the Center for Family Policy and Practice. “All it creates,” she said, “is a highly indebted individual.” Out of the prison population, there are 2.2 million fathers behind bars. And 1 in every 5 fathers have child support duties. The new regulations will be implemented in 2017. Until then, the government will spend $35 million in the next five years providing job training, bus fare and other helpful tools to help incarcerated fathers get their lives on track. Prisoners will have to fill out paperwork to qualify for the program. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS PLAN? SHOULD IMPRISONED FATHERS BE CLEAR OF CHILD SUPPORT WHILE SERVING TIME?
