How accurate are imputed child support orders?

Child support agencies face the challenging task of setting right-sized orders when the non-custodial parent's income cannot be ascertained through state or federal administrative records and the non-custodial parent is unwilling or unable to provide documentation of recent income. In these cases, child support agencies will often impute the non-custodial parent's income assuming their earnings are equal to those of someone who works full-time at the minimum wage. This study uses detailed earnings and hours worked data for employees in Washington state to assess how well this imputation matches the actual earnings of low-wage non-custodial parents. Our results reveal that this imputation would likely set orders that are too high or too low for the majority of non-custodial parents with no income information. The findings suggest the need for child support agencies to move away from a “one-size fits all” imputation approach and develop strategies to better monitor non-custodial parents to determine whether an order modification is necessary.