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Default Orders, Income Imputation, and Implications for Child Support Outcomes

In recent years, concerns have grown about the potential negative consequences of setting child support orders by default or income imputation. The 2016 Final Rule provided guidance to states with directives intended to limit the use of imputation and default. Wisconsin considered changes relevant to the Final Rule via the 2021 quadrennial review process and enacted related changes to its administrative code in 2024. Given the shifting post-Final Rule policy environment, this report explores how imputed and default orders were used in Wisconsin during the years following enactment of the Final Rule, prior to Wisconsin’s administrative code changes. We explore the prevalence of imputed and default orders, including differences in prevalence by obligor characteristics, and associations with child support measures.

We used court record data for divorce and paternity cases coming to court in 2017 and 2018 in 21 counties in Wisconsin. We supplemented the court record data (CRD) with administrative data on child support and earnings and employment records from the Wisconsin Administrative Data Core (WADC). We examined the overall prevalence of imputation and default orders within our sample; reviewed prevalence of orders set by imputation and default by case characteristics; and used logistic regression models to estimate associations between case characteristics and whether an order was set by default or imputation. To examine associations between orders set by default or imputation and child support and employment measures, we examined bivariate differences in child support and employment measures, and then turned to multivariate models to explore these associations. Our analysis is associational and cannot determine causal relationships between orders set by default and imputation and child support or employment outcomes.

Results suggest declines in the prevalence of cases set by default and imputation in recent years. In 2017 and 2018, we find that 7% of cases had orders set by default and 10% by imputation. This compares to 9% and 16%, respectively, in an earlier analysis of cases filed between 2007 and 2010 in the same Wisconsin counties. We note that these declines persist while controlling for other case factors.

Results also suggest that the prevalence of default and imputation varies by county, obligor, and case characteristics. Black obligors, compared to White obligors, have a higher likelihood of having orders set by either default or imputation. Low-income obligors were also more likely than other obligors to have orders set by either method. Default and imputation are used differently across different county contexts, with some statistically significant differences by county size.

Orders set by default and imputation are associated with lower levels of compliance; we find no statistically significant association between employment measures and orders set by default and imputation. Default orders and imputation orders differ from one another in their pattern of associations with child support measures. Notably, a majority of orders set by default were set at $0, resulting in lower order amounts for these cases.

Categories

Child Support, Child Support Policy Research, Orders & Payments, WI Administrative Data Core

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