The child support program aims to secure financial support for children whose parents live apart. The program helps custodial parents (who live with their children) obtain financial support from noncustodial parents (who live outside the household) by establishing child support orders and collecting and distributing child support payments. Parents in the child support program who do not make their child support payments can be subject to enforcement measures, including civil contempt of court proceedings.

Research has found racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic differences in child support outcomes: Noncustodial parents of color and those with low incomes are more likely to fall behind on child support payments, accrue child support debt, and experience enforcement actions. This report presents an analysis of interviews with 34 child support program staff members and 21 noncustodial parents in Michigan and Virginia, focusing on how child support guidelines, policies, and practices may contribute to potential disparities in parents’ experiences and outcomes in the program, and on where there is the potential for bias against parents with different characteristics. The study engaged a specific subset of parents who have long and complex child support trajectories, who have struggled to meet their obligations consistently, and who have been referred to court for civil contempt at least once for not paying child support. Findings include the following:

• Nearly all parents interviewed for this study said that they had experienced unfair treatment in the child support program. Their perception of unfair treatment stemmed from enforcement actions they considered overly punitive; difficulties they experienced in navigating the child support process and communicating with the program; order amounts that made it difficult to meet their own needs; and feelings of not being heard and not having a say in how decisions were made in their cases. Most felt that the child support program is biased against noncustodial parents and favors custodial parents, and these perceptions were often tied to fraught relationships between parents. Interviewees did not report experiencing racial bias in their interactions with child support agencies or caseworkers; about half of the parents believed that race played a role in how they were treated by the judicial system when their cases went to court.
   
• Unlike parents, child support staff members do not believe that the child support program is biased in favor of custodial parents and said that their focus is on making sure that children have the financial support they need to thrive. However, most acknowledged that support orders often do not reflect what parents with low incomes can truly pay after meeting their basic needs. A majority of the interviewees said that guidelines and practices related to order establishment may contribute to disparities between parents with low incomes and those who are more affluent, including lower payment compliance among the former parents and higher rates of experiencing enforcement actions. Most staff members do not believe that child support guidelines, policies, and practices contribute to gender, racial, or ethnic disparities in child support outcomes.
   
• Staff members identified various ways in which institutional capabilities and practices at child support agencies—such as case management structures, communication practices, caseload sizes, and the level of discretion available to caseworkers in decision-making—can lead to differences in parents’ experiences. While staff members said that there was a lot of variation in how different caseworkers engage with parents and how they use the discretion available to them to make enforcement decisions, most did not feel that bias played a role in how workers approached their cases or in any potential outcome disparities.
   
• Staff members acknowledged that parents with low incomes and parents of color often face structural barriers to employment and child support payment, particularly in obtaining quality jobs that pay well. Many said that parents with limited education and with involvement in the legal system faced difficulties in securing higher-wage, steady work. Some said that unstable housing and transportation problems, as well as physical and mental health challenges, affected parents’ ability to earn. But the majority simultaneously emphasized parents’ responsibility to overcome those barriers, and perceived unemployment or underemployment to be a matter of choice. They often categorized noncompliant parents into two types—those deserving or undeserving of leniency—based on individual assessments of parents’ willingness to communicate with the program, engage in employment or supportive services, take any jobs they could find no matter the pay or benefits, or make partial payments. They often used language that could be construed as biased against poor people, reinforcing stereotypes of noncustodial fathers who did not want to work, who did not want to help themselves, and who did not care for their children.
   
• While staff members and parents differed in their perceptions of fairness and bias in the child support program, the conversations revealed areas of consensus between the two groups on how the program could be fairer to parents. These areas included: setting orders to reflect parents’ ability to pay; better addressing fluctuations in parents’ incomes and circumstances when enforcing and modifying orders; reforming policies that make it difficult for parents to pay off child support debt, such as charging high interest rates; improving how the program communicates with parents and helps them navigate their cases; and providing parents employment and other services to help them address challenges to employment and nonpayment. Many staff members also emphasized the need for “early intervention,” or better communication practices and processes to help parents understand the child support program and their obligations early in their engagement with it, to potentially avoid nonpayment, debt accrual, and other challenges down the line.

A forthcoming quantitative analysis that complements this qualitative study will assess racial, ethnic, gender, and earnings-level disparities at different points in the child support process in Michigan and Virginia. Taken together, the findings from the qualitative and quantitative studies can offer insights into potential mechanisms to reduce disparities, where they exist.