Child support programs and the development of the American welfare state

¶ … Child Support Programs and their contribution in making United States a welfare state

The current essay is aimed at exploring the legislations and policies related to child support and welfare and how it helped United States to be a welfare state. The author has analyzed the child support programs and whether these programs have been helpful for the parents of children. The author has also discussed the problems related to these support programs as well as their benefits.

Welfare and Child Support Receipt

In 2005, there were 6.8 million custodial parents in need of child support through either legal awards or unofficial arrangements there were spend an annual average of $5,600 annually, or an average of $465 monthly. "Overall, custodial parents reported receiving $25.9 billion directly from the non-custodial parent for support of their children in 2005." According to the April 2006 Current Population Survey, "sixty-one percent of all custodial parents received at least one type of non-cash support, such as gifts or coverage of expenses, on behalf of their children." Custodial parents who had a child support order or agreement were more likely to receive non-cash support (65.3%) than those custodial parents who did not have awards (55.3%). The most common type of non-cash support received by custodial parents was birthday, holiday, or other gifts. Other support received included clothing, diapers, groceries, medical expenses unrelated to health insurance, and child care . [1: Grall, T.S. "Custodial mothers and fathers and their child support: 2005." (U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Reports, P 60-234). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. (2007).] [2: Ibid. 230. ] [3: Ibid. 234.]

There are many issues that involve the welfare system and child support distribution and receipt policies. Many rules and regulations are established by these policies, which can confuse low-income parents and policymakers alike. Below is a discussion of the history of welfare reform policies and their effects on child support receipt and enforcement is discussed.

Welfare and Child Support Enforcement

One of the most influential pieces of legislation involving welfare and child support enforcement was the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. This was passed during the Clinton era when he made clear: "I want a national system of national child support enforcement because governments don't raise children; people do." [15: Ellwood, 2002, p. 749]

One of the most important premises of PRWORA was holding both custodial and non-custodial parents financially accountable for their children. For example, states were now able to deny food stamps to non-custodial parents who were behind in their child support payments. This new law was the first effort of the federal government to withhold welfare benefits from low-income non-custodial parents as a penalty for not satisfying their child support obligation . PRWORA also allowed states to design their own welfare-to-work programs, and established a lifetime limit on receipt of welfare benefits. [16: McLanahan, S.S., & Robins, P.K. (Eds.).]

One of the most significant aspects of this act was to eliminate the federal obligation that obligate States to go through the first $50 of child support that was paid to welfare families. States were now given the option of how much child support would go to these families. For example, in Iowa, if a custodial parent had a $300 support order and received $361 in welfare benefits, any child support paid by the non-custodial parent went directly to the state for reimbursement of welfare benefits on behalf of the custodial parent.

One of the goals of the child support enforcement system was to provide economically vulnerable single-parent families with an important source of income . If child support provides enough income to help a custodial parent become economically self-sufficient by combining child support with earnings and other types of income, child support may indirectly reduce reliance on, and the costs of, welfare to a state . However, because some of the child support collected was used to offset government costs, it did not significantly raise a custodial parent's income. Not receiving collected child support was one reason why parents were less likely to cooperate with child support authorities. Questions arose from both custodial and noncustodial parents: Why should there be any cooperation with a system in which the children do not directly benefit when the support is paid? . Within PRWORA, there was a "pay families first" section that stated that if a custodial parent went to work and no longer received welfare benefits, that parent would receive all of the child support that was owed and collected for his or her children . The only way that a custodial parent could receive the full amount of child support was to leave welfare and find a job. [17: Cancian, M., Meyer, D.R., & Roff, J. (2007). Testing new ways to increase the economic well-being of single-parent families: The effects of child support policies on welfare recipients. Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty.] [18: Ibid] [19: ] [20: Ellwood, D.T, The Clinton legacy for America's poor. 749]

Sorensen and Halpern (1999) examined whether in-hospital paternity establishment policies and immediate wage preservation augmented receipt of child support for single and formerly married mothers. This study found that in-hospital paternity establishment programs had affected positively the child support delivery for single mothers who did not receive welfare benefits, while instant salary withholding positively impacted delivery of child among previously married mothers who did receive welfare benefits. Sorensen also suggested that single mothers receiving welfare had little incentive to cooperate with paternity establishment because most of the child support collected would be given to the state as reimbursement for welfare expenditures. [21: Sorensen, E., & Halpern, A."Child support enforcement: How well is it doing?" Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute. (1999)] [22: Ibid]

Often, parents chose to act covertly and agreed to create informal arrangements, so that any payments the non-custodial parent made went directly to the child . In some situations, mothers had lost contact with the fathers of their children, or did not want to have to interact with someone who was emotionally or physically abusive, incarcerated, or addicted. In these situations, supporting the children might then fall on the mother's current cohabitating partner, even if he was not the father of her children. However, when partners lost their jobs or stopped financial support, these men were forced out of the home and back onto the street . [23: Cabrera, N., & Peters, H.E. "Public policies and father involvement." Marriage and Family Review, 29(4), (2000): 295-314.] [24: Edin, K. "Single mothers and child support: The possibilities and limits of child support policy," 203]

Guaranteeing child support to custodial parents was the topic of an influential study in 1980 carried on by the Institute for Research on Poverty in Madison, Wisconsin . The Institute envisioned the concept of child support assurance as holding non-custodial parents accountable for their child support obligations, while at the same time guaranteeing a minimum benefit to custodial parents . The three components of the child support assurance system were child support guidelines which established the child support award; routine withholding which deducted child support owed by the non-custodial parent from reported wages and other income; and a guaranteed benefit to support child which was a government guarantee of supporting a child for custodial parents who are lawfully permitted to support a child . In most states, a child support assurance system would be generous enough to exclude single mothers from having to receive welfare benefits, but they would still be eligible for food stamps and medical assistance. This benefit would not be means-tested, so mothers could keep all of their wages if they found employment . [25: McLanahan, & Robins, "Child support assurance: Design issues, expected impacts, and political barriers as seen from Wisconsin"] [26: Ibid] [27: Ibid] [28: Edin, K. "Single mothers and child support: The possibilities and limits of child support policy." 203]

The public policy initiatives mentioned above, among others, have not given much support to the development of positive fathering behaviours in non-traditional families because they were originally based in a traditional family context: a married couple with children. The laws that were based within PRWORA pressured fathers to pay child support, but did not help them overcome barriers that were preventing payment, such as unstable employment . These policies have mainly focused on a father's payment of child support as the most important form of positive father involvement and responsibility . Instead of using federal funding to establish and maintain marriage promotion programs, there should be a mandate to create programs that accept the choices of low-income parents who choose not to marry and provide them with opportunities to become more responsible providers for their children [29: Miller, M. "Through the eyes of a father: How PRWORA affects non-residential fathers and their children." International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family, 20(1), (2006): 237-260.] [30: Ibid]

In their FY2005-2009 Strategic Plan, the Office of Child Support Enforcement describes the programs they have established to help custodial parents be given the child support they are yet to be paid . Four protocols have been established within the strategic plan that state governments can implement in order to help welfare families. The first protocol is to provide intensive child support services to families nearing their five-year time limit of receiving welfare benefits, continuing for the year after the assistance ends. The second protocol is to ensure prompt payment of collections to families when their welfare benefits end. The third protocol considers involving both parents to develop a post-welfare evolution strategy that includes what will be to role of child support if it does not depend on public assistance, reviewing and modifying the child support orders, and negotiating on support arrearages when suitable. The fourth protocol is to use data reports to identify custodial parents who could close their cases with reliable receipt of child support. It is the intention of the Office of Child Support Enforcement for states to implement these strategies and protocols in order to increase and strengthen child support collection and enforcement efforts and to make the system more user-friendly for the families that truly need assistance. [31: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "Strategic Plan FY2005-2009. Washington, D.C.": U.S. Government Printing Office. (2004)]

Formal and Informal Child Support

Within the state and federal child support systems, formal support consists of the money that the non-custodial parent pays either directly to the state or to the custodial parent as a result of a child support order. Informal support consists of any money that the noncustodial parent pays directly to the custodial parent that is not required and not intended to defraud the formal child support system.

When it came to formal support, mothers were more willing in providing the correct information to child support enforcement officials about the fathers because they knew where the fathers lived and worked based on their close proximity to the child. It was also easier for child support enforcement agencies to gather information from intra-state fathers as compared to gathering data from inter-state fathers . In general, they also found that financial and material assistance from the father, particularly informal support had a positive effect on child welfare. [32: Greene, A.D., and Moore, K.A. "Nonresident father involvement and child well-being among young children in families on welfare." Marriage and Family Review, 29(2/3), (2000):159-180]

In 2001, Waller and Plotnick analyzed reasons for the failure of the child support system for families with low-income. They found three components of PRWORA that negatively affected child support receipt . The first component was that custodial parents should assist with the State to locate the noncustodial parent, to establish paternity, and to obtain the child support. The harmful outcomes can emerge if there is no cooperation to establish paternity in the form of reduction of at least 25% in welfare benefits or a total cancellation of benefits. The second component was that all rights should be assigned to child by the custodial parent. Or these rights must be assigned to the state for up to the amount of welfare benefits received. This included all current and past due support and continued as long as a family was receiving welfare benefits. If the custodial parent refused to assign her rights to the state, her public assistance and medical benefits would be cancelled. The children would still receive public assistance and medical benefits, but the benefits would go directly to a payee, not the mother. The third component was that approximately half of states utilized whole of monthly child support payment for the reimbursement of state and federal governments for welfare payments. Because of this welfare reform legislation, the family would not receive the child support and usually faced a decrease in their standard of living. The fourth component of welfare legislation that affected child support receipt was that no formal credit was given for informal payments that are directly offered to the custodial parent, for example clothes, groceries, etc. [33: Waller, M.R., & Plotnick, R. "Effective child support policy for low-income families: Evidence from street level research." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 20(1), (2001): 89-110.] [34: Lipscomb, R.C. (2005). Child support policy reformation: A policy analysis. Race, Gender, and Class, 12(3/4), 73-85.BibliographyBlank, R.M., & Ellwood, D.T."The Clinton legacy for America's poor." In J. Frankel & P. Orszag (Eds.), American economic policy in the 1990s. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (2002): 749-800Cabrera, N., & Peters, H.E. "Public policies and father involvement." Marriage and Family Review, 29(4), (2000): 295-314.Edin, K. "Single mothers and child support: The possibilities and limits of child support policy." Children and Youth Services Review, 17(1/2), (1995): 203-230.Farrel, M., Glosser, A., & Gardiner, K. "Child support and TANF interaction: Literature review. Report to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Falls Church, VA: The Lewin Group. (2003).Garfinkel, I., McLanahan, S.S., & Robins, P.K. (Eds.). "Child support assurance: Design issues, expected impacts, and political barriers as seen from Wisconsin." Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press. (1992)Grall, T.S. "Custodial mothers and fathers and their child support: 2005." (U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Reports, P60-234). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. (2007).Greene, A.D., and Moore, K.A. "Nonresident father involvement and child well-being among young children in families on welfare." Marriage and Family Review, 29(2/3), (2000):159-180.Lerman, R.I., & Sorensen, E. "Child support: Interactions between private and public sectors." Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. (2001)Miller, M. "Through the eyes of a father: How PRWORA affects non-residential fathers and their children." International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family, 20(1), (2006): 237-260.Pirog, M.A., & Ziol-Guest, K.M. "Child support enforcement: Programs and policies, impacts and questions." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25(4), (2006) 943-990.Sorensen, E., & Halpern, A."Child support enforcement: How well is it doing?" Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute. (1999)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "FY2008 Preliminary Report." Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. (2008).U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "Strategic Plan FY2005-2009. Washington, D.C.": U.S. Government Printing Office. (2004)U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means. 2008 Green Book. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. (2008)Venohr, J.C., Price, D.A., Van Wert, L.D., & Anders, C.M. "Child support pass through in Minnesota: A process and outcomes evaluation." Report to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Child Support Enforcement Division. Denver, CO: Policy Studies, Inc. (2002)Waller, M.R., & Plotnick, R. "Effective child support policy for low-income families: Evidence from street level research." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 20(1), (2001): 89-110.Wisconsin Historical Society. "A brief explanation of the Social Security Act." (April 1936) Retrieved November 18, 2011 from hrrp://content.wisconsinhistory.org/u?/tp,3891]

Notes