CHILD SUPPORT, ROUTINE INCOME WITHHOLDING, AND POST‐DIVORCE INCOME

Marieka M. Klawitter and Irwin Garfinkel

Contemporary Economic Policy, 1992, vol. 10, issue 1, 52-64

Abstract: Policymakers are proposing child support reform as a way of reducing “welfare dependency” and countering the “feminization of poverty” while increasing the well‐being of children living in single‐parent households. The federal government and some states have begun to change laws regarding establishment of child support awards and collection of payments. The 1988 Family Support Act mandates routine income withholding of child support payments—i.e., collecting child support directly from the payer's paycheck. This article assesses the effects on post‐divorce income by using data from a demonstration of routine withholding in ten Wisconsin counties. Unfortunately, these data conclude that routine income withholding has little effect on post‐divorce income, at least in the year following divorce. The authors suggest three requirements for substantially increasing post‐divorce income, as well as child support: (i) More family court cases must establish awards, (ii) The amount of those awards must be greater. (Hi) The collection rate for those who have awards must improve.

Date: 1992
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1992.tb00211.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:10:y:1992:i:1:p:52-64

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... 5-7287&ref=1465-7287

Access Statistics for this article

Contemporary Economic Policy is currently edited by Brad R. Humphreys

More articles in Contemporary Economic Policy from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().