Child Support

This brief summarizes an expert convening focused on the child support program’s current ability and future potential to help address child poverty.Key Findings

This brief describes differences in engagement in child support for custodial parents living in rural and nonrural areas. Key findings are below.Key Points:

Safety net programs provide critical support to people during times of economic hardship. Yet the reach and coverage of the safety net, particularly in times of increased need and among economically disadvantaged groups, is not well understood. The U.S.

Social safety net programs provide different types of support to people facing economic hardship. This data point presents estimates of overall participation in the social safety net in 2019, the latest year of available data and presents rates of participation in multiple programs. Key Points:

People facing economic instability often need more than one program or service. This pre-pandemic analysis looks at the reach of the social safety net, including the interaction of specific programs, to better understand program participation as the economy continues to recover. Key Points:

Nutrition assistance programs have been shown to increase children’s health and well-being and decrease the risk of child maltreatment. At the same time, food insecurity rose in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This practice guide is a resource for a broad range of human services programs aiming to be more inclusive of and responsive to fathers. Building on literature from the field and interviews with human services providers that engage fathers in services, this guide outlines strategies for advancing equity in human services programs:

Child support payments are associated with increased parent-child engagement, which can lead not only to better academic and social outcomes for children but also to better parent-child and parent-parent relationships. Moreover, child support payments lifted nearly three-quarters of a million families out of poverty in 2017.

Many parents owing child support may struggle with housing instability, though little research has documented the extent of this phenomenon. This brief and infographic present estimates of the percentage of noncustodial parents who are eligible for and receive housing assistance.

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