Non- or partial-payment of child support owed or related fees (e.g. for health care costs associated with a child’s birth) owed can lead to child support debt, known as “arrears.” Arrears may be owed to children and their custodial parents and/or to government. States are mandated to pursue the collection of and enforce court orders related to both current child support and child support arrears owed.
Implications of Consumer Debt for Families Served by Child Support
- Trisha Chanda, Maria Cancian, and Lawrence M. Berger
- Report
- November 2025
Child Support and Child Welfare System Interactions: Evaluating the Effect of Cost-Recovery Arrears on the Stability of Reunification
- Lawrence M. Berger, Maria Cancian, HeeJin Kim, Anna Ko, and Jessica Pac
- Report
- September 2025
Reducing the Interest Rate Charged on Arrears
- Quentin H. Riser and Daniel R. Meyer
- Report
- December 2023
Tiffany Green on How Charging Dads for the Medicaid Costs of Their Baby’s Birth Affects Child Support
- Tiffany Green
- Podcasts
- November 08 2023
New Research on the Child Support Landscape in Wisconsin
- Jooyoung Kong, Lisa Klein Vogel, and Tova Walsh
- Webinar
- January 11 2023
Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid Expansions and Child Support Outcomes
- Lindsey Bullinger, and edited by Eleanor Pratt
- Fast Focus Policy Brief
- January 2021
Focus & Focus+ 36(4), December 2020
Systemic racism and the justice system
- Focus on Poverty & Classroom Supplement
- December 2020
Negotiating race and racial inequality in family court
- Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate Jr., and Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong
- Focus on Poverty & Classroom Supplement
- December 2020
Culture change: Implementing a new approach to child support
- Jennifer L. Noyes, Lisa Klein Vogel, and Lanikque Howard
- Focus on Poverty & Classroom Supplement
- July 2019
Can a redesigned child support system do better?
- Maria Cancian, Daniel R. Meyer, and Robert G. Wood
- Focus on Poverty & Classroom Supplement
- July 2019