Social Engineering by Car
Another way the automobile is embedded in our lives
America’s tax rules are famously complex: our Federal tax code is thousands of pages long (estimates vary). One reason for this is we like to use taxes to drive behavior: instead of the government, for example, deciding to spend public funds on wetlands preservation, why not make private contributions to a wetlands charity tax-deductible? This hybrid approach responds to our sometimes-conflicting urges to see good deeds done, while not forcing anyone to do such deeds. (As one of the oldest democracies in the world1, we’ve accumulated a lot of intellectual baggage on this front!)
So we do social engineering by taxation. But another powerful tool of social engineering in the USA is the power to grant - or rescind - a driver’s license. Given how intertwined with our daily lives car culture is, possession of a valid driver’s license is almost a requirement of daily life in the States2. (Thus, when a certain flavor of libertarian rails against the dangers of the government introducing some sort of “national ID card,” I reply that we de facto if not de jure already have one, in the driver’s license.)
An illustration of social engineering via driver’s license emerges in the world of child support. Before I introduce the chart, I should say that all the data following and insight following are from child-support expert Jake Solomon, from his blog post here. And as always, errors of interpretation of his work are mine alone.
About 15 million parents in the USA are paying child support3 in any given year. The state has a clear interest in the well-being of children, and so via the court system orders such child support to be paid. Many parents ordered to pay such funds do not wish to do so (an understatement if I ever wrote one), so that the system has billions of dollars of arrears in unpaid support.
A direct way to ensure support is paid is to arrest the “deadbeat” and bring them to trial. This is expensive to do, takes time, and may result in the guilty party’s incarceration, and thus destroy his or her ability to have a job, and be able to make payments! So states long ago seized on an indirect but low cost approach to enforcement: to cancel the driver’s license of the parent in arrears of support.
Mr. Solomon provides a link to a great spreadsheet he has created showing how states’ cancellation policies work… because this tool is wielded at the state level, and as always in the non-quite-united states, policies vary by state. All I can say is, do NOT miss a payment in Florida!
I digress. Here’s the chart:
We have about 260 million adults in the USA. About 6% of them are supposed to be paying child support at any point in time. To keep them paying, the threat of license suspension is held out. About 10% of those mandated to pay support fail to, are tracked down by the judiciary, and have their licenses revoked. (Again, this interpretation is my own, please see Jake’s post for better insight.) No one really knows accurate numbers here4, but let’s assume we’re directionally correct. (And whether it is a good (ethical? effective? smart?) policy or not to enforce payments this way, is beyond my pay grade5.)
Maybe you’re wondering what my point is, and so I’ll clarify. In America the threat of losing one’s license is serious enough to encourage states to use the threat of that to force compliance to laws that regular law enforcement is not capable enough or cost-effective enough to achieve. In effect, “Take care of your kid or I’ll take your car.” Probably not an automobile use case Henry Ford was thinking of when he cranked up the first Model T. But in the America of 2025 we can see from this story, once again, just how interwoven into the very fabric of our society the car is. To overstate the case, fear of being without wheels may drive [sic] you to take better care of your kids.
I am so ticked off that San Marino has us beat! I think.
Outside of metro areas with good public transportation. Which can be counted, I believe, on the thumbs of one hand. And of course, even if you are not driving the car, often someone else is, and that person needs a driver’s license. Uber serves over 30 million trips per day now, more than half of them in the US.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, Wikipedia says “Child support is a [ court-ordered ] ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child … following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid directly or indirectly by an obligor to an obligee for the care and support of children of a relationship that has been terminated, or in some cases never existed. Often the obligor is a non-custodial parent. The obligee is typically a custodial parent, caregiver, or a guardian.”
Given state-level variations in reporting, the difficulty in categorizing someone who was missing payments early in a given year and now no longer is, etc.
One practical problem with license revocation is that, while not forcing you off the road, it leaves you open to further charges and fees and fines if you are caught “riding dirty” (e.g., during a traffic stop for a burned-out headlight). If you’re already having trouble meeting support payments, you probably will have trouble paying these court costs and fines, and will dig yourself into a deeper hole that is ever-harder to get out of. Thus poverty compounds itself.