12/10/2023
Joint custody is a growing reality—but the country’s systems for supporting families aren’t built to accommodate it, Stephanie H. Murray writes. https://theatln.tc/LqFuwCrv
Over time, legal systems in Europe and America have adapted to facilitate or even encourage shared custody. And at least in the U.S., courts tasked with ordering child support have started taking custody arrangements into consideration, Molly Costanzo, a scientist at the Institute for Research on Poverty, says. “Our social policies, unfortunately, do not,” Murray writes. Consider the earned income tax credit (EITC), a refundable tax credit available to low-income Americans. The refund is substantially larger for those claiming a dependent child—but a child can be claimed only once each year. In a joint-custody arrangement, it creates confusion about which parent is entitled to claim the credit—and ultimately a lopsided scenario in which two adults regularly house and care for a child while only one gets state help.
“Joint custody raises these sorts of complications for any program for which one’s eligibility depends on the presence of a child in their home,” Murray writes. “That includes most benefits targeting people with low incomes—even those that, at face value, have nothing to do with kids. Take Medicaid, the public health-insurance program for Americans with limited means. In most states, an adult’s eligibility is determined by whether their income falls below 133 percent of the federal poverty level, a cutoff that varies by the size of the individual’s household; the size of their household hinges on who they expect to claim as a dependent on their tax return. Again, each child can be claimed only once.”
Figuring out an equitable path forward for joint custody will force the U.S. to ponder fundamental questions about what it means to be a family, what constitutes parenting, what the government’s role is in supporting it, and how much of it one has to do before being entitled to such assistance, Murray continues: “The answers won’t be straightforward, but two-household children are already here. There’s no sense in ignoring them any longer.”
