Note on Research: Ranking States Using Child Support Data: A Cautionary Note

Social Service Review

Volumn 70, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 635-652

  Guyer, Jocelyn ^a   Miller, Cynthia ^a   Garfinkel, Irwin ^b  

^a PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 1542639326     PISSN: 00377961     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/604218     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. By 1988, e.g., evidence from research on Wisconsin's pioneering effort suggested that immediate income withholding as opposed to withholding only in response to delinquency increased child support payments by between 9 percent and 30 percent (Irwin Garfinkel and Marieka Klawitter, "The Effect of Routine Income Withholding on Child Support Collections," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 9, no. 2 [1992]: 155-77).
2. Nancy Ebb, Enforcing Child Support: Are States Doing the Job? (Washington, D.C.: Children's Defense Fund, 1994).
3. Paula Roberts, Center for Law and Social Policy, personal communication, December 21, 1994. Also, see the discussion of cases below in the section on collections per case.
4. Linda Mellgren, Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, personal communication, January 4, 1995.
5. In fact, Downey's report card frequently brought objections from state officials, who pointed out that it did not adjust state grades to account for the relative complexity of the state's caseload. Spencer Rich, "Area Given 'D' in Child Support Enforcement: Panel Says Most States Do Poorly in Collecting from Absentee Parents," Washington Post (January 12, 1991).
6. Each reported measure represents an average of fiscal year 1988 and fiscal year 1992. These years were chosen in order to make these measures comparable to our constructed index. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Seventeenth Annual Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), and Thirteenth Annual Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990).
7. Each reported measure represents an average of fiscal year 1988 and fiscal year 1992. These years were chosen in order to make these measures comparable to our constructed index. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Seventeenth Annual Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), and Thirteenth Annual Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990).
8. During the Illinois gubernatorial campaign, one criticism leveled at incumbent Governor Jim Edgar was the poor performance of the child support system in Illinois. He responded by noting that the Department of Health and Human Services had ranked Illinois 14th in total collections, and he attributed this success to the state's attitude about enforcing child support. Michael Gillis, "Netsch Tackles Child Support; Edgar: Collection Has Doubled," Chicago Sun-Times (October 13, 1994).
9. An increase in total collections reported in administrative records may also reflect a change in the comprehensiveness of record keeping rather than an increase in child support collected.
10. The OCSE defines a case as an absent parent currently or potentially liable for the support of dependent children.
11. The OCSE defines the average annual AFDC caseload as the total number of child support enforcement AFDC and foster care cases open on the last day of each quarter. Foster care cases are a minor component of the caseload. Although OCSE does not provide a count of foster care cases, its data on collections indicate that only .7 percent of collections in fiscal year 1992 were for foster care families. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Seventeenth Annual Report to Congress (n. 6 above), tables 5 and 7. As we discuss below, we have adjusted the OCSE caseload data by a constant factor.
12. Michigan was another state mentioned as notable for serving a high fraction of all eligible families. The ranking for this state also drops dramatically when AFDC collections are used.
13. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of AFDC Recipients, FY 1992 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1994).
14. This method was suggested by Linda Mellgren of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE). Although some eligible families do not receive services for "good cause" reasons, OCSE data indicate that there were fewer than 6,000 such cases nationwide in fiscal year 1992. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Seventeenth Annual Report to Congress (n. 6 above), table 53.
15. The OCSE and ASPE both estimate that there are somewhat fewer than 1.5 fathers for each AFDC mother in need of child support services. (Interview with Linda Mellgren, January 4, 1995, and interview with Gail Marmor of OCSE on December 20, 1994).
16. United Press International, regional news, "Idaho Leads Nation Again in Child Support Collections" (October 3, 1994).
17. U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, 1992 Green Book: Background Material on Data and Programs within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992).
18. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Eighteenth Annual Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995).
19. The Wisconsin guidelines set the child support award at 17 percent of the nonresi-dent parent's income for one child, 25, 29, 31, and 34 percent of the nonresident parent's income for two, three, four, and five or more children, respectively. Although it may seem fairly arbitrary to use the Wisconsin guideline to determine potential payments, the use of this percentage-of-income standard is similar in practice to using fathers' incomes as potential payments. We are also implicitly assuming that higher award levels are "better" than lower award levels.
20. This method is described in detail in Irwin Garfinkel, Cynthia Miller, Sara McLanahan, and Thomas Hanson, "Deadbeat Dads or Inept States: A New Measure of Child Support Performance" (Discussion Paper no. 95-5, Princeton University, Office of Population Research, 1995).
21. The Census Bureau recommends a minimum weighted sample size of 75,000 for reliable estimates from the Current Population Survey.
22. See Garfinkel et al. (n. 19 above).
23. Ibid.