SpringerLink
Log in

Too Much, Too Little, or Just Right? Recent Changes to State Child Support Guidelines for Low-Income Noncustodial Parents

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Policy Practice and Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There are growing concerns that current child support guidelines may result in “too high” orders likely to go unpaid and resulting in substantial debt. Recent federal legislation reflects these concerns by requiring states to consider the noncustodial parent’s ability to pay when setting child support orders [45 C.F.R. § 302.56(c)(1)(ii)]. However, this legislation leaves states to determine how to balance the economic needs of paying parents and their children. This paper explores how this flexibility affects the extent of variation in order amounts for low-income parents across states. To better understand how states interpret this new ruling and implications for order amounts, we conducted a cross-state comparison of recent changes to state child support guidelines for low-income payors and calculated order amounts for several types of cases. We find that states fall on a spectrum of how they conceive of parental financial responsibility versus parental self-sufficiency in their policy. Some states view noncustodial parents’ responsibilities for their children’s financial needs as secondary to parents’ abilities to meet their own basic needs; others view children’s needs as coming first; and many fall somewhere in between. Our findings add to current understanding of how child support agencies and lawmakers attempt to address the financial needs of low-income families through policy and statute. We find that having generous self-support reserves and no minimum orders allows states to maximize noncustodial parent income. However, if states seek to maximize financial contributions to children, more graduated adjustments to order amounts may be preferable.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (France)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

All data used in this paper draw from publicly available data. Content analysis of child support documentation draws from the publicly available sources listed in Appendix 1. We drew our income data on our hypothetical cases from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and we drew information about state minimum wage rates from the U.S. Department of Labor (2019).

Notes

  1. Requiring the use of guidelines and establishing criteria for deviating from them limits judicial discretion in the establishment of order amounts, in the interest of promoting fairness and consistency across cases (Brito 2012; Pirog et al. 1998) and in the interest of making the process of setting order amounts simpler and making the amounts themselves more predictable (Brito 2012).

  2. The District of Columbia uses a hybrid model combining the percentage-of-income model with a mathematical reduction based on the custodial parent’s income (McCann 2019).

  3. The final rule also addresses the 2011 Supreme Court decision Turner v. Rodgers by implementing due-process requirements for contempt actions related to determination of an obligor’s ability to pay. It also bars states from treating incarceration as a form of voluntary unemployment, precluding incarcerated obligors from obtaining an order modification on the grounds of a substantial change in circumstances (OCSE 2017b).

  4. The rule also required that states examine the “impact of guidelines policies and amounts on custodial and noncustodial parents who have family incomes below 200% of the Federal poverty level” (42 C.F.R. § 302.56(h)(1)); conduct analyses of case data on “the application of and deviations from the child support guidelines, as well as the rates of default and imputed child support orders and orders determined using the low-income adjustment required” (42 C.F.R. § 302.56(h)(2)); compare payments by case characteristics affecting low-income obligors in particular, including whether or not the case was entered into by default, set using imputation, or determined using a low-income adjustment; and provide a “meaningful opportunity for public input, including input from low-income custodial and noncustodial parents and their representatives,” as well as the child support agency (42 C.F.R. § 302.56(h)(3)).

  5. The states included are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Utah. Links to the guidelines documentation for these states are provided in Appendix A. We also examined the extent to which states considered or implemented changes related to the final rule outside of the scope of this paper, including imputation practices, public health insurance, and incarcerated obligors.

  6. The final rule included a provision that states could postpone considerations related to the final rule until their subsequent quadrennial review if their next scheduled quadrennial review fell within 1 year of the final rule’s effective date. For the states whose reviews fell in 2017, we included the states that considered at least some changes pursuant to the final rule (even if the state postponed some decisions until its subsequent quadrennial review), and excluded states that did not.

  7. All orders were calculated independently by two different researchers. We used SupportPay.com to calculate orders for Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, and West Virginia. Mississippi did not provide an online calculator. Because Mississippi uses a percentage-of-income approach to determine child support orders, we applied the percentages of income for one- and two-child cases to the father’s income for each scenario to calculate order amounts for Mississippi.

  8. Although the focus of this paper is a cross-state comparison, using half the median weekly earnings as one example of low income makes the order amounts in our study comparable to order amounts for parents considered low income in other countries.

  9. Authors’ own calculations using the 2018 federal poverty level for a single person household which was $12,140 per year or $1012 per month (ASPE 2018).

  10. In a recent report, Cancian et al. (2019b) examine the potential impacts of adopting an SSR in Wisconsin and draw a similar conclusion that SSRs increase the financial resources of the noncustodial parent but reduce the financial resources available to custodial parents and children. Examining order amounts for noncustodial parents with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level and assuming full payment of child support orders, they find that an SSR threshold set at 100% of the federal poverty level would increase noncustodial parent income by $220 and decrease custodial parent and child income by $190.

References

  • Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. (2018). 2018 poverty guidelines. Washington: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation Retrieved June 4, 2019 from https://aspe.hhs.gov/2018-poverty-guidelines.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartfeld, J., & Meyer, D. R. (2003). Child support compliance among discretionary and nondiscretionary obligors. Social Service Review, 77(3), 347–372.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, L. M., Cancian, M., & Meyer, D. R. (2012). Maternal re-partnering and new-partner fertility: associations with nonresident father investments in children. Children and Youth Services Review, 34(2), 426–436.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, L. M., Cancian, M., Guarin, A., & Meyer, D. R. (2019). Do low-income noncustodial fathers trade families? Economic contributions to children in multiple families. Social Service Review, 93(2), 183–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019). Median weekly earnings, full-time wage and salary workers. Series. LEU0252881801 -LEU0252881856 and LEU0252882701 - LEU0252882756. In: Weekly and hourly earnings data from the Current Population Survey. Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from: https://data.bls.gov/cgibin/srgate.

  • Brito, T. L. (2012). Fathers behind bars: Rethinking child support policy toward low-income noncustodial fathers and their families. Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, 15, 617.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cancian, M., & Costanzo, M. A. (2019). Comparing income-shares and percentage-of-income child support guidelines. Children and Youth Services Review, 96, 451–462.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cancian, M., & Meyer, D. R. (2004). Fathers of children receiving welfare: can they provide more child support? Social Service Review, 78(2), 179–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cancian, M., & Meyer, D. R. (2018). Reforming policy for single-parent families to reduce child poverty. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 4(2), 91–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cancian, M., Meyer, D. R., & Han, E. (2011). Child support: responsible fatherhood and the quid pro quo. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 635, 140–162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cancian, M., Heinrich, C. J., & Chung, Y. (2013). Discouraging disadvantaged fathers’ employment: an unintended consequence of policies designed to support families. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 32(4), 758–784.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cancian, M., Cook, S., & Meyer, D.R. (2019a). Child support payments, income imputation, and default orders. Report prepared for Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty.

  • Cancian, M., Costanzo, M., Guarin, A., Hodges, L., & Meyer, D. R. (2019b). Potential effects of a self-support reserve in Wisconsin. Report prepared for the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty.

  • Cancian, M., Meyer, D. R., & Wood, R. (2019c). Final impact findings from the Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration (CSPED). Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin–Madison.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Y., & Meyer, D. R. (2017). Does joint legal custody increase child support for nonmarital children? Children and Youth Services Review, 79, 547–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Child Support Enforcement Amendment of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98–378 (1984).

  • Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives. (2018). 2018 green book: Background material and data on the programs within the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means (24th ed.). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demyan, N. & Passarella, L. (2018). Actual earnings and payment outcomes among obligors with imputed income. University of Maryland School of Social Work, Ruth Young Center for Families & Children, 2018. Retrieved from September 9, 2019 from https://familywelfare.umaryland.edu/reports1/guidelines_imputedincome.pdf

  • Edin, K., & Nelson, T. (2013). Doing the best I can: fatherhood in the inner city. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Family Support Act of 1988, (1988) Pub. L. No. 100–485, 102 Stat. 2343.

  • Fleming, J.. (2017). Imputed income and default practices: the state directors' survey of state practices prior to the 2016 final rule. Retrieved June 4, 2019 from http://www.ncsea.org/documents/Imputed-Income-and-Default-Practices_CSQ-April-2017.pdf.

  • Flexibility, efficiency, and modernization of child support enforcement programs, (2016) final rule, 45 C.F.R. § 301–305, 307.

  • Freeman, R., & Waldfogel, J. (2001). Dunning delinquent dads: the effects of child support enforcement policy on child support receipt by never married women. The Journal of Human Resources, 36(2), 207–225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garfinkel, I., McLanahan, S., & Hanson, T. (1998). A patchwork portrait of non-resident fathers. In I. Garfinkel, S. McLanahan, D. Meyer, & J. Seltzer (Eds.), Fathers under fire: the revolution in child support enforcement (pp. 31–60). New York: Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, J. S. (2015). Co-parenting and nonresident fathers' monetary contributions to their children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77(3), 612–627.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grall, T. (2020). Custodial mothers and fathers and their child support: 2017, Current population reports, P60–269. Washington: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic and Statistics Administration.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ha, Y., Cancian, M., & Meyer, D. R. (2010). Unchanging child support orders in the face of unstable earnings. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29(4), 799–820.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ha, Y., Cancian, M., & Meyer, D. R. (2018). Child support and income inequality. Poverty & Public Policy, 10(2), 147–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heinrich, C., Burkhardt, B., & Shager, H. (2011). Reducing child support debt and its consequences: can forgiveness benefit all? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30(4), 755–774.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodges, L., Meyer, D.R., Cancian, M. (2020). What happens when the amount of child support due is a burden? Revisiting the relationship between child support Orders and Child Support Payments. Forthcoming in Social Service Review.

  • Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang, C. C., Mincy, R. B., & Garfinkel, I. (2005). Child support obligations and low-income fathers. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(5), 1213–1225.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kentucky Child Support Program. (2020). Estimate Shild support. Kentucky Child Support Customer Service Website. Retrieved June 24, 2020 from https://csws.chfs.ky.gov/csws/General/Landing.aspx

  • Manning, W. D., & Smock, P. J. (2000). ‘Swap**’ families: serial parenting and economic support for children. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(1), 111–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCann, M. (2019). Child support guidelines models by state. National Council of State Legislatures. Retrieved June 4, 2019 from http://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/guideline-models-by-state.aspx.

  • Meyer, D. R., & Hu, M. C. (1999). A note on the antipoverty effectiveness of child support among mother-only families. Journal of Human Resources, 34, 225–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, D. R., Ha, Y., & Hu, M. C. (2008). Do high child support orders discourage child support payments? Social Service Review, 82(1), 93–118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, C., & Knox, V. (2001). The challenge of hel** low-income fathers support their children: final lessons from Parents' Fair Share. New York: MDRC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, D., & Mincy, R. (2012). Falling further behind? Child support arrears and fathers’ labor force participation. Social Service Review, 86(4), 604–635.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mincy, R. B., & Sorensen, E. J. (1998). Deadbeats and turnips in child support reform. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management: The Journal of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, 17(1), 44–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2019). A roadmap to reducing child poverty. National Academies Press.

  • Nepomnyaschy, L., & Garfinkel, I. (2010). Child support enforcement and fathers’ contributions to their nonmarital children. Social Service Review, 84(3), 341–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Office of Child Support Enforcement. (2017a). Final rule summary fact sheet. Retrieved June 4, 2019 from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/programs/css/fem_final_rule_summary.pdf

  • Office of Child Support Enforcement. (2017b). Final rule overview, 2016 Flexibility, Efficiency, and Modernization in Child Support Enforcement Programs. Retrieved June 4, 2019 from: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/programs/css/overview_child_support_final_r ule.pdf.

  • Office of Child Support Enforcement. (2019). Preliminary report to Congress, FY 2018. Washington : U.S., Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children & Families. Retrieved May 2, 2020 from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/programs/css/fy_2018_preliminary_data_report.pdf.

  • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2019). Wage Levels. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/wage-levels.htm.

  • Pirog, M. A., Klotz, M. E., & Byers, K. V. (1998). Interstate comparisons of child support orders using state guidelines. Family Relations, 47, 289–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robb, C. (2019). Cost of raising children and expenditures on children. Report prepared for the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. Madison: Institute for Research on Poverty.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sariscsany, L., Garfinkel, I., & Nepomnyaschy, L. (2019). Describing and understanding child support trajectories. Social Service Review, 93(2), 143–182.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sinkewicz, M., & Garfinkel, I. (2009). Unwed fathers’ ability to pay child support: new estimates accounting for multiple-partner fertility. Demography, 46(2), 247–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sorensen, E. (2004). Understanding how child-support arrears reached $18 billion in California. American Economic Review, 94(2), 312–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sorensen, E., & Oliver, H. (2002). Policy reforms are needed to increase child support from poor fathers. Washington: Urban Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorensen, E., & Zibman, C. (2001). Getting to know poor fathers who do not pay child support. Social Service Review, 75(3), 420–434.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • SupportPay.com (2019). Child Support Calculator. Retrieved June 4, 2019 from https://supportpay.com/resources/child-support-calculator/

  • Supreme Court of Arkansas. (2020). RE: Implementation of the Revised Administrative Order No. 10. Arkansas Judiciary: Opinions, Court Rules and Administrative Orders/Supreme Court. Retrieved June 12, 2020 from https://opinions.arcourts.gov/ark/supremecourt/en/item/468402/index.do

  • Tollestrup, J. (2019). Child support enforcement: program basics. Congressional research service, Library of Congress. Washington.

  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2017). Table C3. Living arrangements of children under 18 years and marital status of parents, by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin and selected characteristics of the child for all children: 2016. America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2016. Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Washington: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce.

  • U.S. Census Bureau. (2019). Table FM-1. Families by presence of own children under 18: 1950 to present. Current Population Survey, March and Annual Social Economic Supplements, 2019 and earlier. Washington: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce.

  • U.S. Department of Labor (2019). Changes in basic minimum wages in non-farm employment under state law: selected years 1968 to 2018. Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/whd/state/stateMinWageHis.htm.

  • Venohr, J. C. (2013). Child support guidelines and guidelines reviews: state differences and common issues. Family Law Quarterly, 47(3), 327–352.

    Google Scholar 

  • Venohr, J. C. (2016). Differences in state child support guidelines amounts: guidelines models, economic basis, and other issues. Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Law, 29, 377.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vogel, L. K. (2020a). Barriers to meeting formal child support obligations: noncustodial father perspectives. Children and Youth Services Review, 110, 104764. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.104764.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vogel, L. K. (2020b). Help me help you: identifying and addressing barriers to child support compliance. Children and Youth Services Review, 110, 104763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.104763.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waller, M. R., & Plotnick, R. (2001). Effective child support policy for low‐income families: Evidence from street level research. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management: The Journal of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, 20(1), 89–110.

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Peter Christenson for his data collection efforts and careful attention to detail and Daniel Meyer and Emma Casper for their feedback and guidance in the development of this research.

Funding

The research reported in this paper was supported by the Child Support Research Agreement between the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Kansas City, MO, USA

    Leslie Hodges

  2. Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Lisa Klein Vogel

Authors
  1. Leslie Hodges
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Lisa Klein Vogel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Klein Vogel.

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Disclaimer

The research reported in this article was supported by the Child Support Policy Research Agreement between the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or US government determination or policy or views of the sponsoring institutions.

Code Availability

For most states, we were able to calculate order amounts using publicly available child support calculators from child support agency websites. For ten states that did not have their own online calculators, we used a generic online child support calculator from the website SupportPay.com (https://supportpay.com/).

Supplementary Information

ESM 1

(PDF 39 kb)

Appendices

Appendix A Order amounts and burden levels by income scenario and number of children for all states

Table 2 Order amounts and burden levels by income scenario and number of children for all states, one child
Full size table
Table 3 Order amounts and burden levels by income scenario and number of children for all states, two children
Full size table

Appendix B Characteristics of states’ child support guidelines

Table 4 Characteristics of states’ child support guidelines
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hodges, L., Vogel, L.K. Too Much, Too Little, or Just Right? Recent Changes to State Child Support Guidelines for Low-Income Noncustodial Parents. J of Pol Practice & Research 2, 146–177 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-020-00016-9

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-020-00016-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation