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Mothers’ Family Networks and Livelihood in the Context of Child Support Enforcement Policy

Wisconsin’s policy providing a full child support pass-through and disregard of child support payments in calculating eligibility offers a new source of income for W-2 families. It also requires that both custodial and noncustodial parents comply with new rules. This report investigates the effects of both changes, as well as how participants perceive the trade-offs. The researchers reviewed child support policy documents, and in three counties conducted short interviews with local child support administrators and longer ethnographic interviews with a stratified sample of 42 women. The interviews covered family transitions, work history, and changing sources of formal and informal income in an effort to determine how child support income and child support enforcement policies affect economic well-being and family structure.

Categories

Child Support, Complicated Families & Multiple-Partner Fertility, CSDE, CSDE Report, Enforcement, Family Income, Orders & Payments, Pass-Through & Disregard, Related Social Policies

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