The Role of Child Support Insurance in Antipoverty Policy

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 479, S. 119-131

Abstract

A description of existing child support practice in the US, giving attention to the establishment & enforcement of parental child support obligations as well as to publicly provided child support benefits. Effects of the current system on alleviating poverty are assessed. Several questions are addressed: Should low-income absent parents be excused from the obligation to support their children? Can child support provide more generous benefits to single-parent families while minimizing incentives for the formation of single-parent families? Should children in single-parent families be aided by a welfare program? What are the problems with the current child support system? Finally, a proposal for a new child support insurance system is described, along with estimates of the costs of the system & its effects on poverty & welfare dependency. The relationship of estimated benefits to costs is promising enough to warrant trying out the new system in selected jurisdictions. 1 Table. HA