Your family will not be on the street. A wife will generally divorce before (or at least right after) she is on the street. Welfare will then provide benefits to her and the child.

What will happen is once the wife/kids goes on public benefits, that will initiate the child support order. The judge will create an "imputed income" for you, which is whatever he thinks you should be able to earn. If you were a high income office worker, that dictates your imputed income. You are absolutely fucked if you don't keep earning at that rate, even if the only way to do it is a soul crushing office job. You must make enough to pay about 1/3 of that post-tax all in child support, or you will be in violation of child support. A few months of failure to keep up results in a felony conviction, the revocation of your licenses, seizure of your property, revocation of your passport, and imprisonment. While CS order accrues in jail, the arrears will quickly become insurmountable, and you will never again have any economic chance in the United States. It will never discharge, even in bankruptcy, and debtor's prison will always be in the near horizon.

Remind me again why anybody would want to willingly live in the U.S?

Well when you put it that way those TPS reports don't seem all that depressing.

I also have a family and don't have the luxury of taking a year off of work.

But I also think it's possible to recognize that someone else is in a different position with different life circumstances, and not be offended by them sharing their experience.

I don’t have children in part because I grew up with a single mom on tight finances. Having enough economic security and a decent childhood to willfully have children is also a privilege (I’m perhaps naively assuming abortion is legal.)

The reality is, burnout does not just affect the person. It affects people around them too - especially their family.

Of course, if it's impossible to take a break - then yes that's reality as well. But if it's possible to take a small risk, then it's also in the best interest of your family to make sure you're not burnt out.

So you're saying that having a family offers you a shortcut for avoiding the worst of burnout? Sounds like both parties have different kinds of privilege, if that's the case.

It doesn't cause you to avoid it, just you realize suffering through it is better than getting divorced for lack of being able to support the family, and the ensuing child support judgement (for which there is debtor's prison if you can't keep up) that will be even more onerous to your finances than supporting a nuclear family.

Why does the outcome have to be divorce? People's situations vary a lot, maybe the wife actually has a job, for example. Maybe the family can claim benefits without having to divorce, too.

It doesn't have to.

But we have to look at what happens in reality. Financial turmoil is a leading cause of divorce. It is hard enough to pull yourself out of poverty, even harder with a child, even yet more difficult if you have a "dead-weight" partner no matter how much you love or care for them. The sad reality is a man who spirals into poverty is quite likely to lose his wife.

Also, it's a losing proposition to claim benifits while married. The government penalizes marriage in low income, benefits claiming couples [1]. And it's hard to look past the simple observation, born out by statistical analysis of divorce, that women simply choose to leave men who aren't able to provide.

"For example, a single mother with two children who earns $15,000 per year would generally receive around $5,200 per year of food stamp benefits. However, if she marries a father with the same earnings level, her food stamps would be cut to zero. A single mother receiving benefits from Section 8 or public housing would receive a subsidy worth on average around $11,000 per year if she was not employed, but if she marries a man earning $20,000 per year, these benefits would be cut nearly in half. Both food stamps and housing programs provide very real financial incentives for couples to remain separate and unmarried."

[1] https://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/how-welfare-undermin...

The excerpt you cite concerns couples who choose to not marry in the first place, not people already married considering a divorce. In your example, the man brings 20000$ a year more to the household + 5500$ a year of welfare for the mother = 25500$. This is much more than the 11000$ a year the mother would get on her own. I hardly see how this example makes any sense

And you completely overlooked the beginning of the paragraph, regarding food stamps

Scenario A (Mom+ 2 kids): 15k + 5.2k(FS benefits) -> 20.2k for mom on her own, plus whatever unmarried dad provides on the side. I can tell you as someone with kids if mom doesn't work, the cost of children go to damn near zero especially if mom can garden and willing to find free entertainment for children.

Scenario B (Mom + Dad + 2 kids): 30k + 0(FS benefits) -> 15k/adult.

>This is much more than the 11000$ a year the mother would get on her own. I hardly see how this example makes any sense

Only if you consider section 8 benefits in a vacuum and not the other massive difference in benefits between one mom with no income and a a family with a working father making 20k, such as aforementioned foodstamps.

I'm not aware of any distinction made between having been previously married vs never married in these section 8 or foodstamp benefits

It's not nearly so simple as being "tired" of your job.

You obviously have zero idea what burnout is, or what it feels like to be in such a position.

I'd argue that you obviously have the incredible privilege of never having experienced burnout.