INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY
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Child Support and Child Welfare System Interactions: Evaluating the Effect of Cost-Recovery Arrears on the Stability of Reunification

This report builds on research completed under prior research agreements to estimate the impact of foster care cost-recovery child support orders on children’s foster care trajectories, which has demonstrated that cost-recovery orders have significant negative consequences for family reunification (Berger et al., 2024; Cancian et al., 2017). In addition, cost-recovery orders are often not paid in full, resulting in arrears that may persist even after children reunify. In this report, we document the frequency of foster care cost-recovery arrears after family reunification, amounts of these arrears, orders to pay these arrears, and amounts paid. We consider patterns for custodial mothers who have reunified with their children, as well as for noncustodial fathers. We then estimate the causal effect of these arrears on the stability of reunification.

Using data from the Wisconsin Administrative Data Core (WADC), spanning 2004 to 2019, we focus on Wisconsin mothers with at least one child under age 15, who were custodial parents prior to their children’s placement in foster care (between June 2006 and June 2014), for whom the children’s fathers were identified, and for whom all children reunified within 36 months of placement. We follow these mothers for 24 months post-reunification to assess their children’s probabilities of reentering foster care. We first document the frequency and level of arrears and arrears orders and payments for these mothers and their associated noncustodial fathers. We then estimate the causal effect of cost-recovery arrears on the stability of reunification, examining whether any of the mother’s children reenter foster care within 24 months of reunification. To produce causal estimates, we employ an instrumental variables strategy that exploits substantial variation in the proportion of foster care cases for which the judge assigned to their case has issued cost-recovery orders.

Results indicate that cost-recovery arrears essentially double children’s probabilities of reentry within 24 months of reunification. We estimate these effects across a variety of samples and timeframes with consistent results. This suggests that, in addition to cost-recovery orders delaying reunification, associated arrears are a significant barrier to families remaining together once they have reunified. On the whole, these results imply that placing financial demands on parents with children in foster care has a profound negative influence on the stability of family reunification, challenging the efficacy and fairness of such practices.

Categories

Arrears & Related Policy, Child Development & Well-Being, Child Support, Child Support Policy Research, Children, Orders & Payments, Related Social Policies, WI Administrative Data Core

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