A Move to Change Outdated Alimony Laws

RedTracker| Today’s Wall Street Journal takes a look at pressures to change alimony laws. The charge is led primarily by men who protest, not child support which has nearly doubled in the past decade, but support for a former support for life.

Advocates for change argue that contemporary alimony laws are archaic and based on a time when women didn’t work, let alone comprise almost 50% of wage earners.  Citing “not fair” arrangements where former spouses form new partnerships, but refuse to marry the new love, ex husbands argue that they are supporting the new “union”.

Several U.S. states are battling to place new limits on alimony and rewrite decades-old laws. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Oklahoma, lawmakers are pushing for measures like putting time limits on alimony payments, barring alimony if two divorcing spouses are on equal footing professionally, and ending or reducing alimony if the recipient commits a crime or cohabits with another adult in a romantic relationship. Lobbyists and activists are pressing for similar rules in Ohio, Florida, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina. via Wall Street Journal