Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Laura Wheaton on Families/Parenting

This paper examines the noncustodial parent earned income tax credit (NCP EITC), a new type of credit recently enacted in New York and Washington, D.C. and proposed by Senator Bayh and then-Senator Obama in 2007. The NCP EITC offers an earned income tax credit to low-income noncustodial parents who work and pay their full child support. This paper describes the rationale for this policy and provides national estimates of the benefits and costs of an NCP EITC under three alternative policy scenarios. It also discusses several key design and implementation issues.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 includes incentives for states to increase the amount of child support that is "passed through" to families on welfare, rather than retained to offset welfare expenditures. Beginning October 1, 2008, the federal government will share in the costs of a $100 per month pass-through for families with one child and a $200 per month pass-through for families with two or more children. This brief discusses the potential benefits and costs to families, states, and the federal government if all states implemented a $100/$200 pass-through and disregard.

In 2003, the Child Support Directors Association of California contracted with the Urban Institute to develop a cost avoidance estimate for California using the same methodology used for the Office of Child Support Enforcement study. The results of that study are presented here (for state fiscal year 2000-01) and cover the following programs: the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program, the Food Stamp Program, Medi-Cal, the Supplemental Security Income program, and federal housing assistance.

About 300,000 more persons in single-parent families lived in extreme poverty in 1998 than 1996. This primarily reflects an increase in the number of low-income families that left or chose not to enroll in government support programs. Increasing enrollment in government safety net programs could make a big difference. In 1998, if all families with children participated in the post-reform government safety net programs for which they qualified, poverty would have been 20 percent lower and extreme poverty would have been 70 percent lower. These poverty improvements provide a strong rationale for changing existing programs to provide "family-friendly" delivery systems and more standardized eligibility requirements. These changes could maximize the number of families that take advantage of government safety net programs.

The authors examine to what degree has the nation been successful in reducing welfare costs through child support, and how much more welfare savings might we expect if more fathers were to pay child support.

This report describes two approaches for modeling effects of a proposed national child support assurance program (CSAP). Under a CSAP, each child who has an absent parent and meets certain eligibility requirements would be guaranteed an assured child support benefit. Children receiving less than the assured level of child support from the noncustodial parent would receive the remainder in the form of a government-provided benefit. The models estimate the cost of a CSAP by applying the rules of the CSAP to each custodial family in a national sample of households and then summing costs for all families.