Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper will present new results from random assignment assignment evaluations of 4 subsidized employment programs targeting low income noncustodial parents who owe child support but are unable to pay because they are unemployed. The programs -- in Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Syracuse -- were part of the Department of Labor's Enhanced Transitional Jobs Demonstration. The paper will describe the programs' design and implementation, and present their impacts on employment and child support outcomes over a 1-year follow up period. The project is highly policy relevant because child support has becoming an increasingly critical source of income for low income single parents.  Over the past 20 years, the child support system has become increasingly adept at locating noncustodial parents and collecting child support from them, usually via automatic wage withholding.  But the system is much less effective for parents who are not steadily employed in the formal labor market.  Child support programs across the nation are rethinking their mission to go beyond enforcement to consider parents' ability to pay, and subsidized employment is one intervention that has drawn attention because it provides parents with income while they prepare for regular jobs.