Child Maintenance Policies in the United States
| Author | Daniel R. Meyer |
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271201400403 |
| Published date | 01 December 2012 |
| Date | 01 December 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
252 Inters entia
CHILD MAINTENANCE POLICIES
IN THE UNITED STATES
D R. M*
Abstract
is article describes US child maintenance policy, providing an overview of the
scheme in place and how it is working. US child maintenance policy is dicult to
describe. On some i ssues, there is a unied nation al policy, whereas for others there are
separate schemes in each state. For e xample, in nearly every state, child mainte nance
obligations follow a principle of continuity-of-expenditure, with obligations set to
try to force non-resident parents to spend as much on their children as if they lived
with them. However, the precise elements of the formula used to calculate these
obligations dier across the state s. Further, there is substantial variation in whether
(and how) new families aect the obligation, and how situations in which children
spend substantial portio ns of time with each parent are treated. Once the obligation
is in place, however, the collectio n, monitoring, and enforcement system is relatively
similar across states, w ith most states having the same enforcement tools. Key areas
of diculty for the child maintenance s ystem are non-resident parents who have had
children with multiple partners, low-income non-resident parents, and responding
to cases in which the non-resident pa rent is in prison.
Keywords: child maintenance; income support; single pa rents; social policy
1. OVERVIEW
In an international context, the child maintenance scheme in the United States
(US) has a dicult role to ll. For almost 50 years, the US has been described as
a ‘reluctant’ welfare state (Wilensk y and Lebeaux 1965), preferring market-oriented
* Daniel R. Meyer i s the Mary C . Jacoby Disting uished Professor of Social Work in the S chool of
Social Work and the I nstitute for Rese arch on Poverty, Universit y of Wisconsin-Madi son, 180
Observator y Drive, Suite 3412, M adison, WI 53703, USA; phone: +01–60 8–262–7336, e-mail:
Drmeyer1@wisc.edu He t hanks Laura Cuesta a nd Vanessa Rios -Salas for research assist ance and
Maria Canc ian and Christi ne Skinner for susta ined contributions to t he analysis.
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