Reducing child support debt and its consequences: Can forgiveness benefit all?

Abstract

As child support debt owed nationally persists at alarming levels, both noncustodial parents and the custodial families who are not receiving support suffer significant hardships, and states are forced to expend greater resources on collection and enforcement efforts. This paper presents findings from an evaluation of a demonstration program developed to help noncustodial parents with large child support debts reduce their debt while simultaneously increasing child support paid to families, through gradual forgiveness of arrears conditional on payment of current child support obligations. The evaluation employs a randomized experimental design, nonexperimental analyses using propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques, and focus groups and follow-up interviews. Results show a pattern of effects that clearly suggests individuals responded to the program as intended. State child support debt balances decreased for program participants, and participants paid more toward their child support obligations and made more frequent child support payments. The study findings suggest considerable promise for the effectiveness of this program in reducing child support debt burdens and in increasing families' receipt of child support, and they also point to ways in which the implementation of the program can be improved.2

Falling Further Behind? Child Support Arrears and Fathers’ Labor Force Participation

“…Although the full effect of such programs is not well understood, a demonstration program in the state of Wisconsin forgave child support debt for NCPs who made regular payments on their child support orders. This program finds that participants pay more toward their child support obligations, make more frequent payments, and are successful in reducing their child support debt (Heinrich, Burkhardt, and Shager 2011) than those not part of the demonstration. If such programs can be implemented more broadly, they may offset some of the negative consequences on LFP demonstrated here.…”

“…However, Harry Holzer, Paul Offner, and Elaine Sorensen (2005) show that a state-level index of CSE activities is marginally associated ( p <.10) with labor supply among black men between the ages of 25 and 34. Additionally, making the assumption that the exogenous debt associated with Medicaid birthing costs to unmarried fathers (referred to as lying-in costs) are randomly assigned (and thus might provide an unbiased estimate of the impact of child support debt), Maria Cancian, Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Yiyoon Chung (2009) find that such costs are associated with decreases in both formal earnings and child support payments.…”

Law and Public Policy

“…The authors suggest that courts should be more responsive to changes in earnings. These calls for reform echo those of Heinrich, Burkhardt, and Shager () who called for reforms to reduce child support debt with the hopes of increasing the receipt of child support.…”

Patterns of child support debt accumulation

“…Only Sorensen and colleagues (Sorensen, Koball, Pomper, & Zibman, 2003;Sorensen et al, 2007) have specifically examined who owes how much arrears. Several other studies discuss potential policies to reduce arrears among noncustodial parents with large arrears (Bartfeld, 2003;Heinrich et al, 2011;Roberts, 2001), or examine the effects of arrears on noncustodial parents' earnings or employment (Cancian et al, 2013;Miller & Mincy, 2012).…”

“…Other preventative efforts primarily aim to reduce the accumulation of child support debts over time, by, for example, setting realistic orders, increasing parental participation in the order establishment process, improving wage withholding, and facilitating the process by which orders are reviewed and modified. Policies to reduce existing arrears range from efforts to increase the effectiveness of arrears collection to efforts to encourage payment by offering temporary amnesty from being arrested for past nonpayment and to policies that forgive some or all of the arrears owed to the government (Heinrich, Burkhardt, & Shager, 2011).…”