Assured child support benefits are an important component of many proposals to reform the child support system. The authors estimate costs and the likely effects of assured benefits on poverty and welfare participation under two scenarios: with and without incorporating the labor supply changes of custodial parents. They find that in each situation assured benefits will reduce poverty rates and the poverty gap; welfare caseloads and expenditures will also fall. When parents are allowed to change the number of hours they work, the impact of assured benefits will be about the same, but the costs of the assured benefit program will increase.
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