Parents Who Are Ordered to Pay Child Support

The child support system serves nearly 16 million children who live apart from at least one of their parents. MDRC designs and studies reforms designed to change the way the system responds to both parents, including parents who have been ordered to pay child support but cannot afford to pay what they owe.

The Latest
Brief

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) project integrates procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement at six child support agencies. This brief draws on interviews conducted with noncustodial and custodial parents in the study and describes parents’ perspectives on and experiences with the child support program.

Report

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) project integrated procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement at six child support agencies. This report compares the service and enforcement experiences of parents randomly assigned to receive PJAC services with those of parents assigned to business as usual.