Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

During the welfare reforms of the late 1990s, first states and then the Federal government radically reformed the cash welfare system for low-income single parents with children in a variety of ways. One fact about the pre-reform system that is not universally known is that families who were due child support and obtained cash welfare only received a small share of any child support payments, with the vast bulk going to repay the government for AFDC. In conjunction with the federal reforms, the rest of the safety net was overhauled and extensive work suggests that the reformed cash assistance system for single parents-now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families-is now a much smaller cash assistance program with much of the spending moved into other areas. At the same time, a much larger share of child support is being sent on to families no longer or never on cash assistance. In this paper, we will explore the extent to which this aspect of the private safety net provides counter cyclical protection in bad times, and how it has changed in the Great Recession compared to previous periods. We will use both self-reports of child support payments received and administrative reports.