The interaction of child support and TANF.

Child support can represent an important income source for many low-income families, and the receipt of support may be most critical for women as they make the transition from welfare. In fact, in the post-welfare reform era emphasizing work and self-sufficiency, child support is seen by many policymakers as a key income support.

This MDRC study examines the interaction of child support and welfare receipt by addressing several questions concerning child support receipt for samples of current and former welfare recipients. They use several data sources, covering different samples, time periods, and geographic areas, to address these questions in an effort to understand current and former recipients' status in the child support system, such as their rates of receipt before and after leaving welfare, and the effects of child support on self-sufficiency. This report is the second and final in a series for this project. The first report provided an extensive literature review addressing each of the key research questions.