Parents and Children Together: The Complex Needs of Low Income Men and How Responsible Fatherhood Programs Address Them
Broad changes in family demographics have left many children without the support or involvement of their fathers. As a result of high rates of nonmarital births and divorce, millions of American children do not live with both of their parents. OPRE Report 2018-18, prepared for the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), Administration for…
Read MoreCustodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2015
This report provides an overview of children who have one parent living outside of the household and their custodial parents. The data used for this report are from the Child Support Supplement (CSS) to the April 2016 Current Population Survey (CSS) which provides demographic information about custodial parents as of 2016, as well as child…
Read MoreAn Evaluation of the Oregon Parenting Time Opportunities for Children Grant: 1) Mediation; 2) Interactive Parenting Plans Center for Policy Research
In 2012, the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement made “Parenting Time Opportunities for Children” (PTOC) grant awards to five states. The grants were intended to: …improve the financial and emotional support of children in the child support system by increasing safe opportunities for them to build relationships with both parents. The parenting time grants focus…
Read MoreMulti-Site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering‒Research Brief
This brief presents findings on pre-and post-incarceration wages and child support participation in the five impact sites of the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting and Partnering (MFS-IP). Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the study includes implementation and impact evaluations and qualitative and quantitative analyses of participants in programs providing…
Read MoreChild Support: An Overview of Census Bureau Data on Recipients
The national Census Bureau data show that in 2013, 13.4 million parents had custody of children under the age of 21 while the other parent lived elsewhere, and the aggregate amount of child support received was $22.5 billion. In 2013, almost 83% of custodial parents were mothers. Of all custodial parents, 48% were white (non-Hispanic),…
Read MoreLife After Welfare
This report, which includes a chapter on child support, examines outcomes of Maryland families who left cash assistance, focusing on their characteristics, employment and earnings outcomes, and the receipt of other public benefits. The main findings indicate that families’ financial situations improved after exiting Maryland’s Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA) program, compared with their circumstances before…
Read MoreAn Evaluation of the Kansas Child Support Savings Initiative
The Child Support Savings Initiative was developed and implemented by Kansas to help parents who owe child support pay off debt while also saving for their children’s higher education. Parents who meet their current support obligations and make deposits into college savings plans, known as 529 accounts, receive matching reductions in their child support debts.…
Read MoreChild Support Collections to Offset Out-of-Home Placement Costs: A Study of Cost Effectiveness
Families that experience out-of-home placement (OHP) of a child in the child welfare or juvenile justice system are disproportionately poor, and the reasons for OHP often stem from poverty. Because OHP is expensive, and society values parental responsibility, federal and state laws require that parents be referred to the child support system to help offset…
Read MoreChild Support Cases without Support Orders: Three-Year Outcomes
The authors reviewed a sample of cases in the Maryland child support caseload for which child support orders had not been established and examined the outcome of these cases over a three-year time period. They found that 60.9% of these cases closed within three years; 21.6% had established support orders with a median amount of…
Read MoreThe U.S. Wage Garnishment Landscape: Through the Lens of the Employer
This is a follow-up to its initial 2014 wage garnishment analysis in a report entitled, Garnishment: The Untold Story. For its most recent analysis, the ADP Research Institute used aggregated, anonymous 2016 payroll data of 12 million employees. The study found that child support continues to be the top reason for wage garnishment (also known…
Read MoreNudging Changes in Human Services: Final Report of the BIAS Project
This is the final report (2017-23) of the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project conducted by MRDC under a contract with the federal Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in which 15 state and local agencies participated. The project consisted of identifying problems that are appropriate for behavioral interventions, designing interventions, and conducting…
Read MoreLow-income and Never-Married Families: Service and Support at the Intersection of Family Court and Child Support Agency Systems
This report describes the challenges child support enforcement agencies face with respect to the adversarial nature of their processes, and the poverty, unemployment, and other barriers to the economic security of poor and never-married parents who comprise the child support caseload.
Read MoreThe Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA): An Explanation
Congress has long recognized the need for protective legislation for servicemembers whose service to the nation compromises their ability to meet obligations and protect their legal interests. This report discusses the history and provisions of The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act which provides civil protections and rights to individuals based on their service in…
Read MoreNonmarital Births: An Overview
This report by the Congressional Research Service analyzes the trends in nonmarital childbearing, discusses some of the characteristics of unwed mothers, addresses some issues involving the fathers of children born outside of marriage, and offers some concluding remarks. It also contains a brief discussion of paternity establishment within the IV-D program, and its positive impact…
Read MoreFatherhood Initiatives: Connecting Fathers to Their Children
The federal government’s support of fatherhood initiatives raises a wide array of issues. This report briefly examines the role of the CSE agency in fatherhood programs, discusses initiatives to promote and support father-child interaction outside the parents’ relationship, and talks about the need most see for work-oriented programs that enable noncustodial parents to have the…
Read MoreChild Support Enforcement and the Hague Convention on Recovery of International Child Support
This report published by the Congressional Research Service provides an overview of the current Child Support Enforcement (CSE) system and a discussion of how international CSE cases are handled. It provides a summary of the 2007 Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (the Convention), which was…
Read MoreExpenditures on Children by Families, 2015 Revised
Since 1960, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has provided estimates of annual expenditures on children from birth through age 17. This technical report, originally published in January 2017 and revised in March 2017, presents the 2015 estimates for married-couple and single-parent families. Results are shown in tables 1-7 at the end of this report.…
Read More2016 Preliminary Report
The FY 2016 Preliminary Report provides data for the past five fiscal years reported by state, District of Columbia, and U.S. territory child support programs and includes information on collections, expenditures, paternities, orders established, and other program statistics.
Read MoreMaryland’s Child Support Caseload – A Profile of Custodians, 2015
Using Maryland data, the authors analyze current support and arrears owed to custodians, payments received by custodians, and payments retained by the state. Specifically, the authors utilize a sample of custodians who had active cases in July 2015 and examine each of these topics for the period of July 2014 through June 2015. The report…
Read MoreA Blueprint for Economic Security
This paper explores the intersections of the work-related experiences of men and fathers, child support enforcement policies and practices and support services for fathers with low-incomes. Consideration is given to the historical factors that are complicating efforts to end poverty. The Blueprint also proposes changes to child support enforcement efforts and support services for low-income…
Read MoreThe Story Behind the Numbers: The Child Support Program is a Good Investment
This paper takes a closer look at trends in child support program data and other data that affects the program. This paper explains why the child support program is a good investment. FY 2015 set a new record for achieving child support program results. In FY 1977, shortly after the program began, the child support…
Read MoreThe Safety Net that Works—Improving Federal Programs for Low Income Americans
This document is a compilation of essays, ideas, and policy recommendations authored by individuals with expertise in various federal anti-poverty programs. The author of one of the essays, Empowering Child Support Enforcement to Reduce Poverty, is Robert Doar, Resident Fellow and Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studiesand former IV-D Director of the New York State Child…
Read MoreExpenditures on Children by Families 2015
Since 1960, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has provided estimates of annual expenditures on children from birth through age 17. This technical report presents the 2015 estimates for married-couple and single-parent families. Results are shown in tables 1-7 at the end of this report. Expenditures are provided by age of children, household income level,…
Read MoreThe Story Behind the Numbers: Focused on Performance
This paper describes the dramatic improvements in performance that the child support program has made since the enactment of its federally mandated performance system in 1998. The growth in child support collections is reviewed, highlighting three factors that influence collections: (1) program investments; (2) employment and earnings of parents who owe child support; and (3)…
Read MoreThe Limited Reach of the Child Support Enforcement System
This report examines the declining caseload in the national child support enforcement program in comparison to the population of child support-eligible families, which has remained unchanged over the past two decades. The report attributes most of the decline to the reduction in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) cases, which shrinks the pipeline of mandatory…
Read MoreThe Child Support Enforcement Program: A Review of Data
This report, prepared by the Congressional Research Service, examines the IV-D child support caseload, collection, and expenditure data from Fiscal Year (FY) 1978 through FY 2015. It also presents more detailed data, gathered from state-submitted reports to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, on collections, expenditures, paternity establishment, child support order establishment, cost-effectiveness, and…
Read More2014 OCSE Annual Report to Congress (Part 3 of 3)
The 2014 OCSE Annual Report to Congress highlights financial and statistical child support achievements based on data reported by state and tribal child support agencies. The content of the Annual Report is mandated by section 452(a) under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act to give Congressional members information that relates to the overall operations…
Read More2014 OCSE Annual Report to Congress (Part 2 of 3)
The 2014 OCSE Annual Report to Congress highlights financial and statistical child support achievements based on data reported by state and tribal child support agencies. The content of the Annual Report is mandated by section 452(a) under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act to give Congressional members information that relates to the overall operations…
Read More2014 OCSE Annual Report to Congress (Part 1 of 3)
The 2014 OCSE Annual Report to Congress highlights financial and statistical child support achievements based on data reported by state and tribal child support agencies. The content of the Annual Report is mandated by section 452(a) under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act to give Congressional members information that relates to the overall operations…
Read MorePreliminary Report 2015
The FY 2015 Preliminary Report provides data reported by all state child support programs to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement and includes information on collections, expenditures, paternities, orders established, and other program statistics. This report does not contain data from tribal child support programs. Tribal data will be reported in the FY 2015…
Read MoreThe Young Fathers’ Employment Program in Maryland: An Initial Review of Participant Outcomes
The Maryland Child Support Enforcement Administration (CSEA) recently funded a three-county noncustodial parent employment program called the Young Fathers’ Employment Program. The participating counties were Baltimore, Caroline, and Talbot. The University of Maryland School of Social Work conducted an initial review or a pre-post assessment of participants’ employment, earnings, and child support payments. The researchers…
Read MoreMore Child Support Dollars to Kids-Using New State Flexibility in Child Support Pass-Through
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) provides new state flexibility to pass through more child support dollars to children who currently receive or formerly received welfare. The federal government will pick up part of the cost if states exercise this new flexibility. These changes provide opportunities for states to devise new strategies to increase…
Read MoreChild Support, Debt, and Prisoner Reentry: Examining the Influences of Prisoners’ Legal and Financial Obligations on Reentry
This is the final report to the National Institute of Justice. The research attempted to examine the influence of child support orders and related debt on recidivism using data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI). The authors also examined the lagged impacts that child support obligations, legal employment, and rearrest have on…
Read MoreChild Support: An Overview of the Census Bureau Data on Recipients
The United States Census Bureau periodically collects national survey information on child support. This report includes a compilation of information from the biennial survey data from 1993-2013. Compared to 1993 Census data, less child support was received by custodial parents in 2013 ($24.8 billion in 1993 versus $22.5 billion in 2013; in 2013 dollars). However,…
Read MoreResearch Brief: Child Support, Parenting Time, and Safety Concerns
This is an August 2015 research brief, prepared by the Center for Policy Research for the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, describing the policy implications of legislation requiring parenting time orders, identifying implementation questions and alternatives analyzing current practices in family violence safeguards, and providing expertise on next steps for identifying and developing family…
Read MoreIf I Had Money: Black Fathers and Children, Child Support Debt, and Economic Security in Mississippi
This is a link to a report prepared for The Coalition for a Prosperous Mississippi (CPM), which supports a policy agenda to increase economic security for Mississippians. One major economic barrier for young black men is child support, particularly child support that is owed to the State as a result of their children receiving Temporary…
Read MoreParents and Children Together: Design and Implementation of Responsible Fatherhood Programs
The Parents and Children Together (PACT) evaluation, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research for the Office of Research, Planning and Evaluation in the Administration of Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is examining a set of Responsible Fatherhood (RF) and Healthy Marriage grantees funded by ACF’s Office of Family…
Read MoreHelping Noncustodial Parents Support Their Children: Early Implementation Findings from the Child Support Noncustodial Parent Demonstration (CSPED) Evaluation
In 2012, OCSE competitively awarded grants under the Noncustodial Parent Child Support Demonstration (CSPED) Project to child support agencies in eight states to provide enhanced child support, employment, parenting, and case management services to noncustodial parents who are having difficulty meeting their child support obligations. Also in 2012, OCSE competitively awarded a cooperative agreement (under…
Read MoreIn re Andrea R. (Tennessee 2015)
An upward deviation in the child support amount for private school tuition must be supported by a specific finding that the expense is appropriate. This finding must be based on evidence of the financial circumstances of each parent and the child’s lifestyle. In re Andrea R.pdf
Read MorePromising Antipoverty Strategies for Families
In this paper, researchers review changes in family structure, the relationship between family structure and employment, and early evidence on differential impacts of the recession on families.
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