The Economics of Divorce for Families with Children with Special Needs
| Author | Benjamin A. Rubin |
| Pages | 26-29 |
26 FAMILY ADVOCATE www.shopaba.org
When parents of children with special
needs divorce, there are a whole host
of complicated issues to discuss. It is
helpful to rst look at the general
issues all parents of children with
special needs must consider and at how the fact that the
parents are getting divorced will impact these issues.
Planning Is a Family Affair
First, parents of a child with signicant disabilities will want to
plan to ensure that their child is eligible for whatever govern-
ment benets and programs he or she would otherwise be
eligible for. However, grandparents or aunts and uncles can
often, with the best of intentions, leave assets directly to their
grandchild or niece or nephew and cause them to lose
eligibility for important services and programs. Education of
family members is crucial—it is vital to get everyone in the
extended family “on board.” is issue becomes even more
complicated by “absentee” parents and grandparents. For
example, uninvolved parents or grandparents who have little to
do with their child or grandchild may, nonetheless, cause
major problems when they die if they do not have a will, for,
by law in many states, a portion of their assets will go auto-
matically to their child or grandchild with disabilities.
Plan to Allocate Resources Over a Lifetime
Second, parents worry about how much their child needs for
the rest of that child’s lifetime. When parents talk about
planning for college education for a typical child, they can
try and plan for what the cost of tuition might be when the
child is eighteen. With a child with special needs, however,
there are just too many variables, and the time horizon isn’t
ten years or so, but rather seventy, eighty, or maybe even
ninety years or more into the future. What will ination be
fty years from now, let alone investment returns and interest
rates? Which government benet programs will the child
qualify for, and which ones will even exist? It’s impossible to
come up with an exact number. Regardless, parents can
begin to plan by looking at potential resources their child
may have access to as an adult.
e Child’s Potential
e rst resource to consider is the children with disabilities
themselves. What is a child’s potential for gainful employ-
ment? Many children with even signicant cognitive
disabilities have signicant employability, and employment
should, of course, be encouraged. ere are individuals with
autism or cerebral palsy who have a very high earning
potential. ere are also many individuals with these
The Economics of Divorce
for Families with Children
with Special Needs
By BENJAMIN A. RUBIN
Published in Family Advocate, Volume 42, Number 3, Winter 2020. © 2020 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof
may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
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