Child support is a vital tool for providing income to children living in poverty. For families living in poverty who receive child support, it makes up 41 percent of their income on average. But the system can be punitive, requiring noncustodial parents—typically fathers—with low earnings to pay unrealistically high levels of support and driving a wedge between coparents and children. But promising reforms are under way. We propose an ambitious, three-point strategy to complete the transformation of the child support system into a truly family-building institution.

Read this report on the US Partnership on Mobility from Poverty website.