Child Support Is Top Cause of Wage Garnishment

If your company is a manufacturer based in the Midwest, your midlevel, midcareer workers are most at risk for garnished wages—the legal recovery of debt through the seizure of employee pay. The mid-adult years are most prone to divorce—and child support—the key culprits behind wage garnishment for men, according to a new national study by the ADP Research Institute, an affiliate of payroll services provider ADP.

The September 2014 report, Garnishment: The Untold Story, is based on a study using aggregated, anonymous payroll data from 2013, with a dataset comprised of approximately 13 million employees ages 16 and older. The rate of garnishment was calculated as a percentage of employees having their wages garnished compared to the entire labor force.

In 2013, the garnishment rate across the U.S. was 7.2 of workers, the same as in 2012 and down from 7.6 percent in 2011. Child support accounted for 3.4 percent of wage garnishments, followed by tax levies, bankruptcies and other debts.

“For employers, garnishment presents a challenge of balancing consistent, compassionate care of employees with an obligation to comply with varying wage garnishment requirements,” the report states. “A lack of compliance with garnishment policy can result in significant fines and penalties.” Moreover, “state and lien-type requirements vary widely, and employers must be ready to manage internal processes to meet them.”

Child Support and Gender

Across nearly all regional and industery categories, the same proportion of women and men experienced wage garnishments. However, one category with a sharp disparity was child-support garnishment, which was six times higher for men (females had a 0.6 percent child support garnishment rate while males had a 5.8 percent rate). More women than men have physical custody of children and men are more likely to pay child support.

Child support helps explain why industries employing high numbers of men were more likely to have higher overall garnishment rates, the report noted.

Midrange and Midcareer Workers

Study results showed higher garnishment rates in most categories for workers whose earnings were in the midrange ($25,000 - $60,000). Regarding age, the garnishment rate was highest (10.5 percent) for those in the 35 to 44 age group.

One explanation is that workers whose level of compensation tends to fall within the midrange face a variety of life issues that could lead to wage garnishment, including high debt levels and child-rearing responsibilities. Divorce also is most common at this age, and garnishment rates for child support were highest among those earning between $40,000 and $60,000.

Industries and Regions

The study found that 48 percent of U.S. companies in the manufacturing sector had one or more employees with their wages garnished, followed closely by transportation/utilities—where more employees carried child-support garnishment compared to other industries.

The three industry sectors with the least number of employees having garnishment were financial activities, professional/business services, and education/health services. This disparity indicates a possible link between garnishment and blue- and white-collar categories, the report found.

The Midwest had the highest number of employees with garnished wages (10.2 percent), and topped all U.S. regions in the child-support and miscellaneous garnishment categories. The South was second highest overall (8.9 percent), and led all geographic sections for bankruptcy-related garnishments. The West (8.5 percent) and Northeast (5.4 percent) had the lowest garnishment rates.

One reason given for increased garnishments in the Midwest and South: they are home to a heavy concentration of blue-collar manufacturing operations.

Company Size

Wage garnishment also increased by size of company, across all industries and regions. Businesses with more than 5,000 employees had the highest tax levy, bankruptcy and miscellaneous garnishment rates. Those with head counts ranging between 1,000 and 4,999 employees had the highest rate of child-support garnishments.

Many large companies—especially those with manufacturing activities—may have a need to employ a large population of blue-collar and other employees that are midrange earners and are experiencing debt, child care and divorce issues, the report noted.

Stephen Miller, CEBS, is an online editor/manager for SHRM. Follow him on Twitter @SHRMsmiller.