In Rational Basis is the Key Focus in Emerging ‘Third Generation’ Child Support Technology (Proceedings of the Children's Rights Council Conference 1993), ten sequential steps were defined for developing child support guidelines. The process begins with decisions about the basic principles upon which child support awards are based. Only after developing a detailed decision model should one proceed to developing the numeric table.

In The Child Support Guideline Problem we discuss inadequacies in estimates of the cost of raising children that are commonly used in child support guidelines today. It is important to emphasize that the number table is not the right place to begin development of a child support guideline. There is no possibility of divining proper child support policy from national statistics on family spending.

In relation to proper development of numeric tables it is important to first define what the numbers are supposed to mean. Understanding of the meaning of the numbers placed in the guideline table can be developed from a detailed decision model. The detailed decision model must itself be developed from an understanding of rational child support award policy.

PICSLT produced a first analysis for development of numeric tables and presented it in written form in conjunction with the presentation at the 1993 CRC Conference. (An Alternative Child Support Guideline for States to Consider, Preliminary Report) The 1993 PICSLT model followed rather closely the construction methods and best concepts in what we now refer to as the classic paradigm. The classic paradigm was developed in an era when "guidelines" were just that. Child support decisions, by law, were ruled by rational policy. Judges used guidelines to provide a starting point for decision making, and finished the job by fully considering the circumstances and concerns of litigants and the needs of their children. Although legal experts such as Maurice Franks and Judge Melson (Delaware) (the classics) were able to make significant pioneering efforts in developing decision models based on established child support law, it quickly became clear that more work needed to be done. Child support "guidelines" are now legally defined as presumptively correct calculators for child support awards.

In 1994, PICSLT presented the first mathematical equations for explicitly calculating the standard of living adjustment. The classic paradigm lacked an explicit mathematical understanding of the standard of living adjustment. This scientific inadequacy allowed acceptance of the arbitrary numeric tables in use today. Without sufficient definition, the standard of living adjustment seemed to some to have limitations that could only be defined politically. This provided no realistic limitation on the amount that a child support award could be. A few states don not even bother constructing a numeric table. Instead, they merely award a percentage of the payer's income, quite arbitrarily labeling that as "child support."

In 1999, PICSLT revisited the question of crediting for visitation and shared parenting. and extended the mathematics of cross-crediting. In addition to the classic reimbursement approach to cross-crediting, we have now provided the general cross-crediting formula. The general formula accounts for circumstances in both parents' homes rather than only that of the recipient parent.

PICSLT reports regarding adjustments to the basic child support calculation (currently "add-ons" such as day-care, and identifying and adjusting when actual circumstances do not correspond to presumed circumstances) have so far been rather light. We have promised that very little mathematics is required to deal with a vast array of adjustments. We will show that methodology as we move toward completion of the Next Generation PICSLT model. If one takes a que from the sequence of steps mentioned above, the decision to deal with the numbers at this point indicates that we're getting close to fully integrating all the new work.

In the year 2000, we expect to present a new worksheet developed by Kansas child support commissioner James Johnston, which will be supported by the PICSLT child support model. We are in the midst of discussions regarding the name for the new model, since it does not fit specifications (such as "cost sharing" or "Income Shares") of previous models. The Fair Share model has been suggested, which led to questions and discussion about what the word "fair" really means. Perhaps it will be dubbed PICSLT-2000 as a working title -- at least until we find something better.

There are significant challenges in defining the numbers once a complete decision model has been realized. Typically, national family spending data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) has been used to formulate estimates of the cost of raising children. The inadequacy of this data for that purpose has been discussed many times. CES does not contain adequate information on what is spent on individual members of a household. It primarily tells us what is spent by the household as a whole.

PICSLT has preferred to use CES data, and some supplementary analysis by the Department of Agriculture (ARS) along with additional analysis developed by PICSLT. We can go a long way by using what the CES actually has, without actually pretending to extract information from CES that isn't there as other guideline consultants have done. We also recognize that current generation guidelines have been built of faulty interpretation of analysis from the CES which is itself faulty. It has also been suggested that additional data sources be incorporated to improve numeric tables. A significant amount of study goes into understanding transportation, housing, and energy costs for example, which has never been incorporated into the understanding of household costs used in developing child support guidelines. Finally however, PICSLT has given a great deal of support to the use of case by case analysis to tune the guidelines. Traditionally, local bar associations and judges have played an important role in this process.

PICSLT also strongly supports the Constitutional appeals process as an essential aspect of properly applying child support guidelines. With this, the loop is closed, as it should be. We began the process of developing a proper child support guideline by defining the principles upon which child support decisions should be based. We then developed a decision model which can be fully and logically understood that we believe corresponds to those principles. We can now return to the Constitutional process of legal decision making. A guideline can be put into use that gives results that are presumptively correct. The definition of basic principles upon which every child support award decision is made, along with the understandability of the decision model, will provide the basis and the transparency needed to properly and fully check the result when challenged.

In the paper hot-linked below, economist Hans Dutt takes a look back at a classic cost sharing table which partially incorporated 1993 PICSLT table development concepts. In comparing this table with others, the reader is cautioned not to place them side by side to compare rows. It is extremely important to understand the addition of explicit mathematics for calcuating the standard of living adjustment. This feature is not included in the Income Shares model. The Melson (Delaware) model included an explicit standard of living adjustment as a simple percentage of the payer's ability to pay (after adjustments). In order to make a valid comparison with an Income Shares numeric table, one would first need to add the standard of living adjustment to the non-Income Shares table.

In one of the earliest PICSLT studies (Child Support Guidelines: Resolving the Dilemma, 1990) inadequcies in the classic cost-sharing model were recognized. In paticular, cost sharing models did not account for the standard of living adjustment nor did they adequately model differences in the ability of parents to pay. For these reasons, it was understood that simple cost sharing resulted in awards that were too low; especially disadvantaging low income custodial parents when the father was able to make a greater financial contribution. On the other hand, the new Income Shares model overcompensated for this problem in many cases with arbitrarily high values in the numeric table. In many cases, it was reasoned, the right answer lies somewhere in between. What we expect from the PICSLT model is that low income custodial parents will not see much of a change and in some cases may receive higher awards (assuming the father can afford to pay and there is a low rate of credited visitation). However, we would expect to see lower awards in many cases as the custodial parent's income increases. The latter is due to the fact that we are removing the alimony hidden in child support awards. Spousal support can be awarded separately when appropriate. The PICSLT paper presenting new equations includes mathematics for awarding spousal support in relation to a child support award.

The final table is expected to feature a further break-down of costs into specific categories of expenditure to facilitate comparison with individual case circumstances. The new worksheet developed by James Johnston will make use of this feature. We hope to include copies of the new worksheet hot-linked to this page in the near future as well as additional reports providing detailed analysis used in developing the table. Please feel free to follow and review the work as it progresses and comment in the PICSLT discussion forum.
 

Click here for Hans Dutt's Working Paper on the numeric table
 
 

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