Child Support Cuts -- Starting to Shrink Family Income: Reversing Cuts Now Will Provide a Needed Boost to the Economy

Publication Date: January 2008

Publisher: Center for Law and Social Policy

Author(s): Vicki Turetsky

Research Area: Social conditions

Type: Brief

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

Quick action is needed by Congress this year to reverse counter-stimulative federal cuts to state and child support programs included in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA). Allowing these cuts to take effect will result in lay-offs of child support enforcement workers, and even worse, will cost families with children at least a billion dollars a year. In contrast, preventing the loss of federal funds to state and county child support programs will provide needed state relief, while ensuring that families do not lose support in an economic downturn. According to several economists, “restoring funding to the child support program would produce timely, well targeted stimulus to the economy with minimal increases in the federal deficit.”