Although there is a large body of research devoted to the issue of the determinants of welfare caseloads, none of these studies has incorporated the effects of child support enforcement (CSE). We employ annual state panel data from 1980 to 1999 and find that states with more effective CSE have...

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...

This paper was presented at the conference "Unequal incomes, unequal outcomes? Economic inequality and measures of well-being" as part of session 5, "Social indicators in New York City." The conference was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 7, 1999. The authors address some of...

Child support enforcement policies enjoy widespread support from legislators because most people believe that fathers should support their children, even when they live in separate households. Less often emphasized is the potentially far-reaching impact of these policies on increasing the...

Research shows that stronger child support enforcement increases the amount of formal support received by children from their nonresident fathers. Yet, little is known about: 1) the informal cash and non-cash contributions that nonresident fathers make—especially to nonmarital children, 2) the...

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey and the March Current Population Survey, we calculate historical poverty estimates based on the new Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) from 1967 to 2012. During this period, poverty as officially measured has stagnated. However, the official...

This article provides information on the effectiveness of state child support enforcement systems. We use individual level datafrom the Child Support Supplements of the Current Population Sur veys (1978-1992) to create an index of state effectiveness that captures success at securing child...

Child care and early education policies may not only raise average achievement but may also be of special benefit for less advantaged children, in particular if programs are high quality. We test whether high quality child care is equalizing using rich longitudinal data from two comparison...

High rates of incarceration among American men, coupled with high rates of fatherhood among men in prison, have motivated recent research on the effects of parental imprisonment on children’s development. We contribute to this literature using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing...