In New York City, $25 doesn't go very far when it comes to groceries: You may be able to buy a dozen eggs, a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a pound of chicken, a can of beans and a couple of bananas.

And forget dining out, considering that a single meal at a fast-casual restaurant in the city can easily cost $12 to $15. $25 would be barely enough to feed one person for a few days, let alone sustain a child for a month.

Yet, New York state law mandates a minimum child support order of $25 per month — a figure set decades ago which has never been adjusted for inflation — even when the noncustodial parent has little or no income. This requirement can lead to unpayable debts for indigent parents, while offering little meaningful financial support to the custodial parent, legal aid attorneys told Law360.

"$25 a month — can't find lunch in some places," Alet Haywood, the director of the Domestic Violence Law Unit at the nonprofit New York Legal Assistance Group told Law360.

Legal aid organizations assisting low-income litigants say New York's child support system is riddled with systemic issues, but point to minimum child support payments, court inefficiencies and lack of legal representation as sources of major hurdles for both custodial and noncustodial parents.

According to data collected by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, the collective amount of unpaid child support in the state totaled about $7 billion in 2023, the year for which the most up-to-date information is available.

Custodial parents must file a petition in family court to obtain child support, often requiring months or even years before a final decision is made. Attorneys say the court system moves slowly in processing petitions, often requiring several court appearances. Custodial parents, who are overwhelmingly unrepresented, sometimes have to wait over a year just to get a first hearing.

"I have had some child support cases that have taken two, three years to resolve because they're going through trial," Haywood said.

The statutory minimum child support order of $25 per month per child, in particular, is a frequent point of criticism. Courts often default to the statutory amount when a noncustodial parent earns little or no income, or when financial information about their earnings is unavailable.

For a parent who is not earning any money, the mandatory minimum amount can pile up debt, particularly because that debt in New York is subject to a 9% statutory interest rate.

Other times, noncustodial parents exploit the low minimum by delaying financial disclosures to pay the least amount possible, Haywood said.

And while the overall intent behind the minimum payment is to ensure some level of financial contribution from noncustodial parents, attorneys say it creates more harm than good.

"If the client isn't able to pay child support, why should they be able to pay $25 per month?" said Rene Kathawala, pro bono counsel at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. "It doesn't make a lot of sense."

Because of the 9% statutory interest rate on this debt, "you are really adding debt up for someone who may be unable to pay," she said.

As many custodial parents go through the complexities of the child support process without a lawyer, they often feel like they have little choice but to accept the $25 minimum payment.

Survivors of domestic violence, in particular, often settle for this low amount to avoid getting enmeshed in protracted legal fights that force them to interact with their abusers through the family court.

But because this amount is so meager, many custodial parents have to request public assistance to support their children. That forces them to surmount additional hurdles: As soon as a custodial parent files a petition for assistance like cash advance, food stamps, Medicaid or supplemental security income, the state automatically files a child support case against the noncustodial parent to recoup the money it spends on supporting the child.

"They say, 'We're the government, we're giving you money for your kids, you have to pay us back somehow,'" said Nathalie Gonzalez, the legal director of Family Legal Care, a nonprofit based in New York City. "The custodial parent doesn't have a say in that."

This process traps custodial parents in bureaucratic hurdles while failing to secure actual financial support.

Since public assistance agencies count unpaid child support as income — whether the noncustodial parent fails to pay the $25 statutory minimum or another amount — the responsibility falls on the custodial parent to file enforcement petitions, go back to court, and prove nonpayment.

And while noncustodial parents who repeatedly fail to make child support payments can be threatened with jail time, they rarely end up behind bars. That's in part because judges are often reluctant to jail someone knowing they won't be able to earn money and pay child support, and in part because that's not the outcome their former partners desire.

"You're put in this position: I can work with the father of my child to see if he can come up with a way to pay support, or I can send him to jail for six months, and he's not going to pay any support," Haywood said. "In the grand scheme of things, you don't want to be the person to send the father of your child to jail — to explain that to your children."

Lack of Representation Makes System More Inaccessible

Kathawala, who has represented numerous low-income parents in New York Family Court, said that the mandatory minimum payment represents "only the tip of the iceberg" of a state child support system he called "broken."

Enforcing child support orders in the Empire State is challenging, Kathawala said, in part because it's difficult to verify the income, or lack thereof, of noncustodial parents who are not salaried employees and do not receive W2 forms.

Meanwhile, the court system allows little margin for error. If a custodial parent fails to show at a hearing, the child support petition might get dismissed. On the other hand, the system is also punitive to their counterparts. Noncustodial parents who fail to pay child support — even the $25 minimum — face severe consequences such as driver's license suspension, passport revocation and possible jail time.

Overall, attorneys say that the lack of legal representation in child support-related matters represents a massive obstacle for New Yorkers utilizing the system. Language barriers can prevent parents from fully understanding their legal obligations and rights, further complicating an already difficult legal process.

Unlike in custody cases, indigent parents in child support disputes do not have a guaranteed right to an attorney in the state. Child support creditors, which attorneys say are almost always the father, are entitled to a lawyer at the government's expense only when they are at risk of incarceration for failing to make court-imposed payments.

Her Justice, a nonprofit organization that connects low-income women with pro bono attorneys on matters involving family law, divorce and immigration, estimated that about 90% of people filing petitions for child support in the state do so without the help of a lawyer.

According to official data, there were nearly 500,000 Family Court filings across New York state in 2024. About one-third of those filings involved child support. That would mean that about 46,000 people in New York City were unrepresented as they went through the child support legal process.

Legal aid attorneys emphasize that the child support process is complex and requires lawyerly skills.

Dealing with noncustodial parents who quit their jobs or conceal their income to avoid paying, for instance, requires using subpoena powers to obtain documents such as work contracts and bank statements.

"You're expected, as a lay person, to navigate a complex legal process to ensure that you are receiving the correct amount of support for your child or children with no access to legal guidance," Haywood said.

New York is hardly the only state to struggle with a clumsy child support system. Its child support arrears pale when compared with those in California and Texas — respectively, over $17 billion and nearly $20 billion.

Still, peculiarities and an overly complex structure makes New York's byzantine court system an oddity in the nation. Child support cases often require filing actions in trial-level state Supreme Court, which creates an additional obstacle that attorneys say is significant, particularly for parents with low-paying jobs who may find it difficult to take time off to show up to court.

Experiencing the complexity of the system without the help of a lawyer is a cause of frustration to litigants, attorneys say. Many end up losing faith in the child support system and in justice as a whole.

As a result, Kathawala said, many custodial parents end up trying to solve issues related to their children's well-being outside the court system. Meanwhile, noncustodial parents avoid paying child support orders they deem unfair or arbitrary. They do so by going "underground," shutting down bank accounts in their names and going to live with friends and family members to avoid detection.

"A lot of clients, in my experience, either opt out of the system or they just become very belligerent towards the system," Kathawala said. "That results in angry litigants who claim the orders are unjust. They then violate them, and the legal system kind of spins out of control, where there's all this uncollected money."

In Search of Solutions

Organizations like Family Legal Care, NYLAG and Her Justice attempt to fill the gap in child support representation, but the challenges are formidable and resources are limited, attorneys say.

Some attorneys see the child support system as de-prioritized, in terms of funding, staffing and overall accountability, compared with other courts.

"Child support is like the unloved child — to say it in nice terms — of the family court system," Gonzalez said. "If you speak to a lot of people who either have experienced child support firsthand, or have worked in child support, you understand a little more on just how difficult it is and the repercussions that it has in every facet of your life."

Gonzalez said advocates in New York are pushing for change. For example, they seek to end the system that automatically starts a case against a noncustodial parent when the custodial parent enrolls in public assistance. Such a process has already been repealed in California and other states.

To reduce the burden on family courts and speed up case resolutions, legal aid attorneys advocate for reform, particularly for an administrative child support process.

"You have a huge volume in an under-resourced court," Rachel Braunstein, the director of policy at Her Justice, told Law360. "And it doesn't make sense for what people need."

Her Justice advocates for legislation reforming New York's system to allow for administrative processing of child support cases, similar to models in other jurisdictions. The organization also advocates for alternatives to traditional litigation that provide expedited settlement processes for parents who agree on child support.

In about half of the states, child support agencies help families hammer out child support agreements or represent them in court, which in turn helps move the cases quickly.

Administrative processing in Massachusetts showed some promise: In 2021, its first year of implementation, it helped solve 9,000 child support cases.

"Those are big numbers for a state like Massachusetts," she said, adding that New York should implement a similar system.

Haywood said that the child support system needs a significant overhaul to effectively serve its purpose.

The court system should first increase the number of judges to address court delays. But even more crucial is making the system more proactive in ensuring that noncustodial parents pay the amounts of child support they are required, she said.

"No matter how much we overhaul the system, without accountability to the parents who are supposed to be doing what they're supposed to do, the overhaul won't create the impact that we're seeking," she said.

Haywood said she supports establishing an automatic enforcement system that triggers when child support payments stop. That would help shift responsibility away from custodial parents.

Implementing a better tracking system for noncustodial parents' financial information would prevent evasion. And the minimum child support amount should be raised to reflect real costs of living, she said.

"$25 per month per child isn't going to cut it."

--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo. Graphics by Ben Jay and Jason Mallory.

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