Deadbeat Dads, Welfare Moms, and Uncle Sam: How the Child Support Recovery Act Punishes Single-Mother Families

Abstract

The growth of single-mother families in the early 1990s, and contemporaneous research on the connection between the nonpayment of child support and the number of those single-mother families on state assistance, led the 102nd Congress to conclude that stricter enforcement of child support obligations would shrink the welfare rolls. The Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 (CSRA) was passed with the immediate programmatic goal of tracking down and prosecuting the most errant noncustodial fathers, or 'deadbeats,' who flee their home states to avoid paying child support. Prosecuting high-profile offenders, proponents reasoned, would effectuate Congress' second programmatic goal of deterring other noncustodial fathers from shirking their child support obligations. The CSRA also sought to achieve the normative goal of restoring traditional gender roles and family norms by specifying that federal funds be used to ensure that men reattach themselves financially to their children and their children's mothers. This note documents the advent of the federal government's involvement in the criminal prosecution of child support evaders, and explores the ramifications the CSRA has had and will continue to have on the people who comprise single-mother households. I approach the issue from several analytical frameworks, discussing the privacy rights and practical needs of custodial mothers and their children, and the equal protection interests of noncustodial fathers. I also examine the theoretical tensions reflected in the CSRA's legislative history and subsequent amendment as well as the patterns of criminal prosecutions and convictions under the Act. This discussion leads to the modest suggestion that prosecuting child support evaders at the state and local level is more effective, as well as to the more radical proposal of eliminating most child support collection efforts and instead using these federal and state resources to strengthen single-mother families.