The child support obligation, non-custodial parental income and compliance: Data collection strategies

Enforcing child support obligations has always been a key component to welfare policy. With an increased emphasis on personal responsibility, child support enforcement will take a more central role as states plan to reduce welfare spending by enforcing child support obligations. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how survey research, in particular mail surveys, can be used as an evaluation strategy to provide information about a given caseload and their ability to pay. Based on a state-wide survey conducted in Texas the author proposes that income information can be coaxed from parents and that researchers can use this information to measure discrepancies of income, order size, and payment. Equitability of AFDC and non-AFDC caseloads, enforcement and compliance issues are discussed.