Housing and Common Wages
Some states (such as California) automatically garnish up to 50% of pre-tax income to pay child support arrears. This can present a hardship in states whose cost of living is high. The Out of Reach report produced by the National Low Income Housing Coalition sets 30% of household income as an affordable level for housing costs. After a loss of 50% of takehome income, the suggested expenditure on rent also decreases 50%.
California’s Fair market rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,149. In order to afford rent and utilities, without paying more than 30% of income on housing, a household must earn $3,829 monthly or $45,950 annually. Assuming a standard work schedule, housing alone requires a wage of $22.09, far above California's $8.00 minimum. Adding child support essentially doubles the necessary income. If the obligor has no other child support debts, earns California minimum wage working 40 hours a week, has no benefits, and the custodial spouse does not work, the expected payment is closer to $320.
Read more about this topic: Child Support In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words housing and, housing, common and/or wages:
“We have been weakened in our resistance to the professional anti-Communists because we know in our hearts that our so-called democracy has excluded millions of citizens from a normal life and the normal American privileges of health, housing and education.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“We have been weakened in our resistance to the professional anti-Communists because we know in our hearts that our so-called democracy has excluded millions of citizens from a normal life and the normal American privileges of health, housing and education.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“I have more in common with a Mexican man than with a white woman.... This opinion ... chagrins women who sincerely believe our female physiology unequivocally binds all women throughout the world, despite the compounded social prejudices that daily affect us all in different ways. Although women everywhere experience life differently from men everywhere, white women are members of a race that has proclaimed itself globally superior for hundreds of years.”
—Ana Castillo (b. 1953)
“When it comes to finances, remember that there are no withholding taxes on the wages of sin.”
—Mae West (1892–1980)