5:41 pm UTC May. 8, 2021
Editor s Note: Author Chelcey Adami met Maribel Landeros and Karizma Vargas a few years ago when she wrote about Karizma’s quinceañera. Adami became close friends with Landeros, eventually asking her to be a bridesmaid at her wedding.
Maribel Landeros always wanted to be a mother.
Growing up in Salinas, she tried to pack up a bag to take her baby cousin home and cried when her aunt told her, No Mija, you can t take her.
Maribel Landeros
I was in heaven. I was the happiest mom on earth. I was so ready for motherhood. It was the best gift ever.
California keeps millions in child support while parents drown in debt
Advocates say California places low-income and minority parents in debt by garnishing child support payments and imposing high interest rates when they fall behind.
Credit: Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters
Stacy Estes in front of his home in Sacramento, Calif on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters Author: Kate Cimini, CALmatters Updated: 9:09 PM PDT May 3, 2021
CALIFORNIA, USA
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Lea este artículo en español.
Half of Stacy Estes’ pay disappears every month before it hits his bank account. Each check is about $500 lighter than it should be, intercepted in the name of child support which he wouldn’t have a problem with, if it were going to his kids.
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Repaying public aid
Stacy Estes in front of the home he shares with his fiancée in Sacramento on April 7, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters
$18.4 billion.
That’s how much California parents owe in overdue child support payments, but a staggering $6.8 billion of that debt is due to the government, not families the result of the Golden State keeping an unusually large portion of payments for itself. No other state in America takes a higher percentage of payments and only one state charges a higher interest rate when parents don’t pay on time, the Salinas Californian’s Kate Cimini reports in a new series, “Intercepted,” for CalMatters’ California Divide project.