When the System Profits, Children Disappear
On paper, Child Protective Services exists to protect children from abuse and neglect. In reality, the modern child welfare system has become one of the most dangerous, opaque, and financially distorted government bureaucracies in America. It is a system where children generate revenue, dissent is punished, and accountability is almost nonexistent.
This is not an exaggeration. It is a structural problem that can be traced through funding streams, consulting contracts, statutory incentives, and real cases where families were destroyed despite doing nothing wrong.
Once you understand how the money moves, the outcomes stop being surprising.
The money behind child welfare
Since 2022, Indiana alone has spent roughly fifteen billion dollars on social services agencies. Approximately four billion of that went directly to child services responsible for around twelve thousand foster children. That works out to roughly one hundred ten thousand dollars per child per year when federal subsidies are included.
Families caring for those children typically receive between nine thousand and nineteen thousand dollars annually.
The remaining money does not follow the child. It follows the system.
