INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY
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License Suspension and Civil Contempt as Enforcement Tools

When parents who owe child support do not pay, child support agencies have tools available to enforce orders. In this report, we focus specifically on two tools: license suspension and civil contempt. This report explores how often and under what conditions these tools are used; how they are associated with obligor characteristics, child support actions, employment, and earnings; and practitioner views on their effectiveness.

This study uses quantitative and qualitative methods. Our quantitative analyses use data from the Kids Data System available through the Wisconsin Administrative Data Core. We used data from three time periods: 2015–2016, 2018–2019, and 2020–2021. Our primary sample was obligors with open, current support IV-D cases during the three periods of interest (n=401,487); many of our analyses use progressively-limited samples (e.g., obligors who met the Wisconsin lien docket criteria, n=301,907; who received a notice of intent to certify a license; n=54,783; and who had a contempt hearing, n =73,023). We first descriptively analyzed the prevalence of relevant enforcement actions pooled across all periods and in each period separately. We examined the prevalence of these actions for different samples of obligors, and we used multivariate logistic regression models to examine associations between obligor characteristics and enforcement outcomes. Finally, using regression models, we analyzed associations between enforcement actions and measures of compliance, arrears growth, employment, and earnings. Our qualitative component explores how counties use and make decisions about driver’s license suspension and county staff perceptions of the effectiveness of driver’s license suspension. We conducted interviews with child support agency staff and directors from six Wisconsin county agencies with differing characteristics.

Regarding the prevalence of contempt and license-related actions, we found that Wisconsin obligors experience contempt-related enforcement actions more frequently than license suspension-related actions, and that threats of sanctions (i.e., contempt hearings and letters of intent to certify) occur more frequently than imposition of sanctions. In 2015–2016, 13.5% of obligors had a contempt hearing. This proportion dropped to 9.4% in 2020–2021. A smaller proportion of those with contempt hearings were found in contempt: 3.6% of obligors in 2015–2016 had a finding of contempt compared to 2.4% in 2020–2021, representing a 35% decrease. A smaller proportion of obligors received a notice of intent to suspend a license (of any kind) over the three time periods, ranging from 7.7% to 8.5%. Across all periods, between 3–4% of obligors had at least one type of license suspended, ranging from 3.2% in 2015–2016 to 3.9% in 2020–2021. Our analysis suggests differences in use of license suspension and contempt by county and obligor characteristics. We found no associations between the use of tools and child support measures and negative associations or no associations for earnings and employment.

In our study’s qualitative component, we learned in interviews that staff generally take a range of other actions that may resolve nonpayment issues, at least temporarily, before warnings and sanctions occur. We learned that many directors and staff feel that license suspension actions should be pursued with caution to avoid creating impediments to work, paying child support, and parenting. Participating counties emphasized the importance of outreach and casework to understand why nonpayment had occurred for determining next steps.

Categories

Child Support, Child Support Policy Research, Employment, Enforcement, Orders & Payments, Unemployment/Nonemployment, WI Administrative Data Core

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