Getting Blood From Stones: Results and Policy Implications of an Empirical Investigation of Child Support Practice in St. Joseph County, Indiana Paternity Actions

• Author: Marsha Garrison,Margaret F. Brinig
• Date: 01 October 2018
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12365

ARTICLES

GETTING BLOOD FROM STONES: RESULTS AND POLICY

IMPLICATIONS OF AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF CHILD

SUPPORT PRACTICE IN ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, INDIANA PATERNITY

ACTIONS

Margaret F. Brinig and Marsha Garrison

Today, there is consensus that the current system of allocating and enforcing child support obligations does not work well for

disadvantaged families, most of which are nonmarital. Nonmarital children are less likely to have support orders established

than marital children, and they are much less likely to experience full payment. In this article, we report data on child support

awards and enforcement associated with a sample of paternity actions brought in 2008 or 2010 in St. Joseph County,

Indiana. We found that child support practice in St. Joseph County promotes limited contact between children and their

absent fathers, nonpayment of prior support obligations, and the accrual of arrears that can never be paid. These results

strongly support recent changes in federal child support regulations and programs that postdate the orders in our study. Our

results also demonstrate both the need for additional reforms and the difficulties that lie ahead as the states begin to g rapple

with applying the new standards.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

•Child support enforcement among the very disadvantaged neither makes fathers more responsible nor collects signifi-

cant money

•It also makes contact with their children less likely and results in the amassing of arrearages that will never be paid

•While recent federal legal changes move in the right direction, we fear that local agencies are still unable to calculate

incomes when none can be shown, and, as with credit for other paid support orders, resort to shortcuts that are inaccu-

rate and unproductive

Keywords: Child Support; Child Support Enforcement; Empirical Research;Indigent Fathers; Nonmarital Children; Pater-

nity; Poverty; and Unmarried Parents.

Today, there is consensus that the current system of calculating and enforcing support obliga-

tions does not work well for disadvantaged families, most of which are nonmarital. Nonmarital chil-

dren are less likely to have support orders established than marital children, and they are much less

likely to experience full payment.

In this article, we report data on parenting time, child support calculation, and enforcement

actions in a population of nonmarital children for whom paternity actions were brought in 2008 or

2010 in St. Joseph County, Indiana. The computerized, court-based record system we utilized to

collect data gave us access to information on parental characteristics and child outcomes that other

researchers investigating child support practice in disadvantaged populations have been unable to

access. Our research thus offers an unusually data-rich window into current outcomes in a popula-

tion where problems are large and new solutions are desperately needed. Our findings demonstrate

that recent changes in federal child support regulations and programs, which postdate the orders in

our study, were very much needed. Our findings also demonstrate the need for additional reforms

and the difficulties that lie ahead as the states begin to grapple with applying the new standards.

Corresponding: marsha.garrison@brooklaw.edu; Margaret.Brinig.1@nd.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 56 No. 4, October 2018 521–543

© 2018 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

I. THE DEVELOPMENT, AIMS, AND RESULTS OF U.S. CHILD SUPPORT POLICY

Ensuring that child support orders are entered and enforced against nonresident, “deadbeat”

fathers

1

has been a guiding principle of U.S. support law for the past half century. Current law and

practice generally derives from a federal initiative, inaugurated in 1975, designed to raise support

values and increase the likelihood that a support award would be paid. This initiative stemmed from

sharp increases both in the number of single-parent families

2

and in the cost of public assistance to

these families.

3

Due to similar demographic shifts and increased public-assistance burdens, many

other industrialized nations initiated comparable changes in child support law and practice during

the same period.

4

The first major U.S. legislation, enacted by Congress in 1975, established the federal Office of

Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and required the states to create their own child support

enforcement agencies as a condition of receiving reimbursement for public assistance to needy chil-

dren and their families (Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC]).

5

The new federal law

required parents (typically mothers) applying for AFDC benefits to assign their child support claims

to the state as a condition of receiving assistance. It required the new support agencies (popularly

described as IV-D agencies because they originated in Title IV-D of the federal Social Security

Act) to establish support obligations for absent parents of federal-supported children, collect support

from those parents, and provide a parent-locator service equipped to search state and local records

for information on parents who could not be found. To reduce applications for public assistance,

the 1975 law also made IV-D services available to all parents who paid a reasonable fee.

The 1975 requirements were expanded by the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984

(CSEA)

6

and Family Support Act of 1988.

7

These new laws required the states to change the method

by which child support orders were calculated. Support determination had previously relied primarily

on judicial discretion to produce an award value; under the new federal rules, states were required to

adopt guidelines that took into account “all earnings and income of the absent parent”and used “spe-

cific descriptive and numeric criteria”to produce a presumptive award value.

8

CSEA also required

the states to add new enforcement weapons to their arsenals, including immediate wage withholding,

the imposition of liens against nonpaying obligors, the deduction of unpaid support from federal and

state income tax refunds, and statutes of limitation permitting the establishment of paternity up to

eighteen years after a child’s birth. This package of requirements was further expanded by the Per-

sonal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996,

9

which mandated innova-

tions in paternity establishment, expanded informational resources used for parent locating, required

certain expedited procedures for routine cases, and provided funds for programs to improve unem-

ployed fathers’job prospects and to support fathers’access to their children.

In response to these various federal mandates, state child support law and practice have shifted

dramatically. Before the 1975 law was enacted, parents seeking support were invariably forced to

find the obligor parent themselves and to pay for legal assistance in establishing and/or enforcing a

support award; today, 50–60% of all support orders are obtained through the IV-D program.

10

Before federally required innovations in paternity establishment, paternity was often not established;

indeed, in 1979, the ratio of paternities established by IV-D offices to the number of nonmarital

births was .19.

11

Today, paternity is established in 100% of IV-D cases.

12

The shift in law and prac-

tice has also dramatically increased child support collections. In fiscal year 1977, state IV-D agen-

cies served fewer than a million cases and collected less than $1 billion. In fiscal year 2015, these

same agencies served nearly 16 million children and collected $28.6 billion.

13

Increased child support collections serve a range of goals. Child support payments lift approxi-

mately a million family members out of poverty every year.

14

Because of child support’s positive

effects on labor supply, welfare participation, fertility, and marriage decisions, every dollar of sup-

port paid also lifts the household income of recipient families by a much larger amount.

15

More-

over, because fathers who pay child support are more likely to spend time with their children,

16

it is

possible that the federal child support program has increased parent–child contact for at least some

children.

17

522 FAMILY COURT REVIEW