Word: deadbeat
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...impressive record. According to its website, in 2002 alone CSSD “established paternity for more than 65,000 children, and distributed over $428 million dollars for families.” But taking into account the L.A. bureaucracy’s ruthless crusade to find “deadbeat dads,” as well as the widespread problem of paternity fraud, the numbers become a lot less impressive...
...problem is not confined to California. Federal initiatives begun in the late 1990s require states to search vast databases of tax records for “deadbeat dads,” but do not specify rigid standards of accuracy in paternity identification. As former President Clinton trumpeted Arkansas’ system of child support enforcement in a 1994 town hall meeting, “We started immediately beginning to process child support and creating a presumption of paternity that could be only overcome with proof...
Steve Lofton is not your typical deadbeat foster dad. Under his care, he has voluntarily raised five infants that no one else would take in. He has provided shelter, food and a loving home. He even quit his job in order to attend full-time to his foster children’s medical needs, which ranged from developmental problems to testing positive for the HIV virus. However, as ideal a foster father Steve may be, according to Florida state laws, he is not the ideal adoptive father—simply because he?...
...deadbeat parents were not bad enough. Now aggravated spouses have a new gripe: profiteering companies that offer to help chase down the more than $89 billion in child-support payments that American parents have failed to make. Deadbeat bounty hunting is a small but growing field. There are at least 38 private businesses, up from a smattering a decade ago. The biggest of them, Supportkids, has 30,000 open cases and has collected more than $120 million from deadbeats since it was founded 11 years ago. But it has also kept $40 million for itself, which raises the question...
Still, an industry that turns up the heat on others is learning how it feels. Gary Katz, CEO of Child Support Network, the nation's second biggest deadbeat-collection firm, worries that a small number of complaints could endanger what he feels is "a critical option for moms seeking help." He adds that his company brought an array of investigative resources to bear upon Suzanne Simmonds' case and therefore earned its fees. And for the record, his company no longer uses the form letter sent to Simmonds--but not because it contained harsh language. Katz explains, "We stopped using...