Welfare Reform and Child Support Policy in the United States

In all the debate over the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act in the United States, little attention has been paid to the impact of welfare reform on women's ability to secure child support, a key to bringing single mothers out of poverty. Advocates of welfare reform claim it will reduce women's poverty, but we argue that this legislation actually makes it difficult for poor women to receive adequate child support because the legislation is written to serve the interests of the government, not those of poor women and children. We argue that the goals of child support policies in the United States must change from punitive attempts to enforce child support orders to the type of child support assurance policies found in other welfare states that guarantee basic benefits for children.