Goals for State-Federal Action

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) supports policies that nurture responsible families. Any policies regarding the role of parents must take into account that all families are not intact and stable. NCSL believes that children deserve two involved parents. To that end, NCSL has an interest in policies that support intact families, encourage healthy marriage and provide opportunities for fragile and fractured families to parent their children together. NCSL recognizes efforts to salvage some relationships may not be appropriate and there needs to be special awareness of the prevalence of domestic violence and abuse. NCSL supports efforts to assist parents with parenting skills, even in the absence of marriage, in order to have as stable a support system for the children involved as possible.

NCSL supports policies that encourage the formation of two parent households. Although many single parents are successful in raising children in a single parent household, there is growing evidence that children who grow up with two involved parents are less likely to be poor, have contact with the criminal justice system, and become teen parents, and are more likely to graduate from high school. Children need a strong family bond and support system, including the positive influence of fathers even when they do not live in the home.

One of the four goals of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 is to encourage the formation and maintenance of two parent families. Some states are now using federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant funds and state Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funds to create fatherhood programs including education and training, employment assistance, anger management, peer support, parenting classes, relationship building and marriage skills.

Only 30% of welfare recipients receive any type of continuous child support, although states have recently sought to aggressively improve collection by employing a variety of strategies. However, poor fathers have a difficult time keeping up with child support payments, and there is evidence that these fathers are unable, not unwilling, to pay. These fathers try to provide some informal support directly to the mothers of these children. These fathers often have not completed high school, have a sporadic work history, and have an arrest record. Low-income fathers were often raised without fathers of their own and do not have role models for parenting. NCSL believes that supporting efforts to help low-income fathers be better parents and providers will result in increased financial support and stronger connections with their children. Improving the employment prospects for non-custodial parents is essential so parents will provide regular, on-going cash support to their children. This is a critical component for the long-term success of welfare reform as the combination of earnings and child support makes low-income families self-sufficient.

NCSL believes that a new federal fatherhood program should:

• Provide funds to all states on a formula basis;
• Ensure state legislative authority (often referred to as the "Brown amendment");
• Count state contributions to fatherhood toward their state MOE requirements under the 1996 welfare law;
• Provide states flexibility in determining eligibility of program participants;
• Provide state flexibility to create or support programs at the local level;
• Encourage collaboration on the state and local level, and
• Provide states the opportunity to use government, non-profit or faith-based providers as the state determines best fits the needs of their communities.

Federal child support policy can be a barrier to improving the payment of support by non-custodial parents. NCSL supports federal legislation that lifts the barriers to states choosing to implement pass-through of child support payments directly to families. Currently, federal law requires that state pay not only the state share of collected child support, but reimburse the federal government for their share if the state chooses to pass-through to families. NCSL strongly supports a change in federal law that eliminates the requirement that states reimburse the federal government if the state chooses to pass-through child support to families.

NCSL urges the federal government to continue to provide states with MOE credit if states choose to pass-through child support to families. NCSL urges the federal government to provide assistance to the states on the usage of current policy toward compromising of arrearage. These arrearages are often barriers to participation in fatherhood programs and to family reunification and marriage. The federal government should clarify and provide state technical assistance regarding the current options for states to deal with child support arrears owed by an absent parent who later married or remarried the custodial parent, a non-custodial parent living in the household, or parents in fragile families.

NCSL’s policy on welfare reform details further positions on family formation and marriage.