Publications on Child Support & Paternity

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.

Stepping Stones is Washington Area Women's Foundation's multi-year initiative focused on increasing economic security and financial independence for low-income, women-headed families in the Washington metropolitan area. The Women's Foundation and the Urban Institute will co-sponsor a Stepping Stones Research Briefing, featuring two panels highlighting strategies for increasing and preserving the income and asset gains of low-income, women-headed families through the current recession.

In 2006, New York became the first state in the country to enact legislation that consists of two innovative policies that are designed to help low-income noncustodial parents (mostly fathers) find work and pay the full amount of their current child support called the Strengthening Families Through Stronger Fathers Initiative. This report describes this initiative and gives detailed information about the five pilot sites that are providing employment services to low-income noncustodial parents in the following New York communities: Buffalo, Jamestown, New York City and Syracuse. It is the first of several reports that will describe this initiative and its results over the next two years.

This report was prepared in response to a mandate from the California State Legislature to analyze how much of the $14.4 billion in child support arrears owed statewide in March 2000 was realistically collectible. Child support arrears had grown dramatically in California during the prior decade and state legislators were concerned about their collectibility. The Urban Institute estimated that $3.8 billion, or 26% of the $14.4 billion, would be collected over 10 years. The reason that so little arrears are likely to be collected is that most of the arrears are owed by individuals who owe more than $20,000 in arrears and have relatively low incomes.

In 2003, the Texas Office of Attorney General fundamentally altered the process of establishing child support orders, going from a highly judicial process of establishing orders to a process that establishes most orders administratively. It also substantially improved the issuance of income withholding orders. This report describes the implementation of these reforms and measures their impact. It finds that, after the reforms were implemented, the amount of time it takes to establish child support orders and income withholding orders on newly opened cases declined significantly and the amount of arrears assessed on newly established orders declined significantly, suggesting a highly successful initiative.