Child Support and Low-income Families

Child Support and Low-income Families PDF Author: Maureen Rosamond Waller
Publisher: Public Policy Instit. of CA
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
This report examines why the child support system breaks down for so many low-income families, presenting information from interviews with unmarried mothers and fathers nationwide. Four chapters focus on: (1) "Introduction" (child support policy in California and nationwide); (2) "The National and California Child Support Systems" (California's system involves: opening child support cases, locating noncustodial parents, establishing paternity, establishing support orders, enforcing support orders, and modifying support orders and treatment of past-due support payments); (3) "Effects on Low-Income Parents" (deadbeat dads and responsible fathers, financial disincentives created by assigning child support rights to the state, responses to financial disincentives, family conflicts created by mandatory cooperation, formal payments versus direct or in-kind payments, responses to mandatory cash support, problems created by enforcement practices, and problems with the modification process); and (4) "Conclusions and Policy Options" (general changes such as raising the pass-through and establishing child support assurance, and specific changes such as setting awards as a realistic percentage of the noncustodial parent's income, forgiving or limiting arrearage, and recognizing informal support). (Contains 38 references.) (SM)

Child Support and Low-income Families

Child Support and Low-income Families PDF Author: Maureen Rosamond Waller
Publisher: Public Policy Instit. of CA
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
This report examines why the child support system breaks down for so many low-income families, presenting information from interviews with unmarried mothers and fathers nationwide. Four chapters focus on: (1) "Introduction" (child support policy in California and nationwide); (2) "The National and California Child Support Systems" (California's system involves: opening child support cases, locating noncustodial parents, establishing paternity, establishing support orders, enforcing support orders, and modifying support orders and treatment of past-due support payments); (3) "Effects on Low-Income Parents" (deadbeat dads and responsible fathers, financial disincentives created by assigning child support rights to the state, responses to financial disincentives, family conflicts created by mandatory cooperation, formal payments versus direct or in-kind payments, responses to mandatory cash support, problems created by enforcement practices, and problems with the modification process); and (4) "Conclusions and Policy Options" (general changes such as raising the pass-through and establishing child support assurance, and specific changes such as setting awards as a realistic percentage of the noncustodial parent's income, forgiving or limiting arrearage, and recognizing informal support). (Contains 38 references.) (SM)

Child Support Report

Child Support Report PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Child support
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description


Fathers' Fair Share

Fathers' Fair Share PDF Author: Earl S. Johnson
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443209
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
One of the most challenging goals for welfare reformers has been improving the collection of child support payments from noncustodial parents, usually fathers. Often vilified as deadbeats who have dropped out of their children's lives, these fathers have been the target of largely punitive enforcement policies that give little consideration to the complex circumstances of these men's lives. Fathers' Fair Share presents an alternative to these measures with an in-depth study of the Parents Fair Share Program. A multi-state intervention run by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, the program was designed to better the life skills of nonpaying fathers with children on public assistance, in the belief that this would encourage them to improve their level of child support. The men chosen for the program frequently lived on the margins of society. Chronically unemployed or underemployed, undereducated, and often earning their money on the streets, they bore the scars of drug or alcohol abuse, troubled family lives, and arrest records. Among those of African American and Hispanic descent, many felt a deep-rooted distrust of the mainstream economy. The Parents Fair Share Program offered these men the chance not only to learn the social skills needed for stable employment but to participate in discussions about personal difficulties, racism, and problems in their relationships with their children and families. Fathers' Fair Share details the program's mix of employment training services, peer support groups, and formal mediation of disputes between custodial and noncustodial parents. Equally important, the authors explore the effect of the participating fathers' expectations and doubts about the program, which were colored by their often negative views about the child support and family law system. The voices heard in Fathers' Fair Share provides a rare look into the lives of low-income fathers and how they think about their struggles and prospects, their experiences in the workplace, and their responsibilities toward their families. Parents Fair Share demonstrated that, in spite of their limited resources, these men are more likely to make stronger efforts to improve support payments and to become greater participants in their children's lives if they encounter a less adversarial and arbitrary enforcement system. Fathers' Fair Share offers a valuable resource to the design of social welfare programs seeking to reach out to this little-understood population, and addresses issues of tremendous importance for those concerned about welfare reform, child support enforcement, family law, and employment policy.

Child Support

Child Support PDF Author: Robert I. Lerman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Child support
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
Child support is a private transfer that is integral to the means-tested public transfer system. Support payments generally lower the budget costs of welfare as well the incentives for parents to participate. The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, which establishes and enforces support obligations, also affects the incentives of the non-custodial parent donors and ultimately the distribution of incomes. While not formally income-tested, CSE still targets low-income families because so many custodial families are poor. This paper reviews the history of the CSE program; the economic rationale for government's role; trends in support awards and payments; the importance of child support to low-income families; the capacity of non-custodial parents to pay child support; trends in costs, financing and effectiveness of the CSE program; the effects of child support on behavior; equity issues in child support; and proposals for reform. Despite efficiency gains in the CSE program, especially in establishing paternity, a shift in the composition of cases has offset these improvements, causing support payments per custodial mother to rise only modestly in real terms.

Child Support Assurance

Child Support Assurance PDF Author: Irwin Garfinkel
Publisher: The Urban Insitute
ISBN: 9780877665632
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description


Child Support

Child Support PDF Author: Alfred Kahn
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
This book looks at the questions of court-ordered payments, enforcement procedures, visitation rights and child custody in the USA and makes comparisons with practices in Europe and UK.

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309483980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619

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Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

America's Fathers and Public Policy

America's Fathers and Public Policy PDF Author: Nancy A. Crowell
Publisher: National Academies
ISBN:
Category : Families
Languages : en
Pages : 66

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Book Description
Presents the full text of "America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop," edited by Nancy A. Crowell and Ethel M. Leeper. Lists committee members and workshop participants and notes acknowledgments. Remarks that the Board on Children and Families convened the workshop, "America's Fathers: Abiding and Emerging Roles in Family and Economic Support Policies," held in Washington, D.C., on September 26-28, 1993. Notes that the main topics of discussion centered around child support, teenage fathers, fathers of disabled children, and inner-city poor fathers. The Report from the workshop examines such topics as economic support, barriers and incentives to involvement, and public policy regarding fathers' rights. Contains a bibliography, a list of references and suggested directions for research, and the workshop's agenda. Links to the home pages of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy Press (NAP), as well as to other reports.

A Safety Net That Works

A Safety Net That Works PDF Author: Robert Doar
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0844750069
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This is an edited volume reviewing the major means-tested social programs in the United States. Each author addresses a major program or area, reviewing each area’s successes and recommending how to address shortcomings through policy change. In general, our means-tested programs do many things well, but some adjustments to each could make the system much more effective. This book provides policymakers with a broad overview of the issues at hand in each program and how to address them.

Fathers Under Fire

Fathers Under Fire PDF Author: Irwin Garfinkel
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610442407
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
"This important and highly informative collection of studies on nonresidentfathers and child support should be of great value to scholars and policymakers alike." —American Journal of Sociology Over half of America's children will live apart from their fathers at some point as they grow up, many in the single-mother households that increasingly make up the nation's poor. Federal efforts to improve the collection of child support from fathers appear to have little effect on payments, and many critics have argued that forcing fathers to pay does more harm than good. Much of the uncertainty surrounding child support policies has stemmed from a lack of hard data on nonresident fathers. Fathers Under Fire presents the best available information on the financial and social circumstances of the men who are at the center of the debate. In this volume, social scientists and legal scholars explore the issues underlying the child support debate, chief among them on the potential repercussions of stronger enforcement. Who are nonresident fathers? This volume calls upon both empirical and theoretical data to describe them across a broad economic and social spectrum. Absentee fathers who do not pay child support are much more likely to be school dropouts and low earners than fathers who pay, and nonresident fathers altogether earn less than resident fathers. Fathers who start new families are not significantly less likely to support previous children. But can we predict what would happen if the government were to impose more rigorous child support laws? The data in this volume offer a clearer understanding of the potential benefits and risks of such policies. In contrast to some fears, stronger enforcement is unlikely to push fathers toward. But it does seem to have more of an effect on whether some fathers remarry and become responsible for new families. In these cases, how are subsequent children affected by a father's pre-existing obligations? Should such fathers be allowed to reduce their child support orders in order to provide for their current families? Should child support guidelines permit modifications in the event of a father's changed financial circumstances? Should government enforce a father's right to see his children as well as his obligation to pay support? What can be done to help under- or unemployed fathers meet their payments? This volume provides the information and insight to answer these questions. The need to help children and reduce the public costs of welfare programs is clear, but the process of achieving these goals is more complex. Fathers Under Fire offers an indispensable resource to those searching for effective and equitable solutions to the problems of child support.