Child support enforcement and child poverty: A long-term perspective based on findings from the United States

This article seeks to broaden the discussion of the efficacy of the Child Support Enforcement program in the United Kingdom. Many are skeptical of the program, claiming that the UK's system is meant only to recuperate public expenditures on low-income children in lieu of combating child poverty. We argue that, in addition to any assessment of the program's ability to reduce child poverty directly, any child-centric evaluation must also consider the counterfactual: How many poor people would there have been in the absence of the program? Research findings from the United States Child Support Enforcement program, a program that is similar to that found in the UK, suggest that conclusions from evaluations that incorporate the counterfactual may be different from those that critics of the UK Child Support Enforcement program reach.