Poll: 43 Percent Not Paying

    A recent poll shows that custodial parents are not receiving their child support payments.     
  
Almost half of the poll respondents, 43 percent, said they are not receiving one dime of court-ordered child support payments. The poll, conducted by GFK Roper and commissioned by Divorce360.com, further illuminated the discrepancy – just 25 percent of custodial parents are receiving their payments. Of the rest, 17 percent, are getting some of the payments, but not getting all they are due, 6 percent are fighting to get child support.    

The independent polling agency spoke by phone with more than 1,500 people. The margin of error for the study is plus or minus 2.6 percent.      

Part of the issue is that noncustodial parents, who are not living full-time with their children, don’t like paying child support, according to Brette McWhorter Sember a former family law attorney and author of several books about divorce, including “The Divorce Organizer & Planner,” and “Child Custody, Visitation and Support in New York.” She said she thinks noncustodial parents don’t see how the money they pay goes directly to the care of their children. “I believe child support is essential, but from the point of view of the person paying it, it seems as if it benefits the other parent more than the child,” Sember said. Those who are not receiving the child support should be prepared to ask the court for help getting the money, Sembler said. “You need to become familiar with the court system and learn how to use it,” Sember said. “You need to get the child support paid through the state enforcement agency when possible so that they can make sure it is paid,”             

Sember said the discrepancy between what’s ordered by the court and what is actually received can be attributed to many factors, from resentment about paying at all to frustration that the custodial parent is not using the money in the way the noncustodial parents wants it to be used.