Two Sides of the Same Coin: Examination of Administrative Leniency in SNAP and Child Support Enforcement

• In Event: Enforcement and Beyond: Child Support Policy and Families with Limited Incomes

Abstract

Scholars, policy analysts, and policymakers have recently increased their focus on the “whole family” approach, which includes noncustodial and custodial parents and their children, as well as the intersection of human services programs. More often, discussions concentrate on meeting the economic needs of custodial parents and their children in programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), childcare, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and child support. Conversely, discussions related to the economic needs of noncustodial parents (NCPs) are often overlooked, focusing solely on their ability to meet their child support obligations. Many low-income NCPs without additional children in their homes are also referenced as able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) in SNAP, the sole means-tested safety net program available to them.
 

ABAWDs receiving SNAP face strict work requirements, including program time limits that restrict their benefits to three months within a 36-month period unless they work at least 80 hours per month. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics permits states to waive these requirements in counties facing high unemployment or insufficient job availability, allowing ABAWDs to access SNAP benefits for up to one year. Such county-level ABAWD waivers represent administrative leniency acknowledging localized employment constraints. 

Parallel to SNAP administrators, child support professionals—operating as street-level bureaucrats—also possess discretion to apply administrative leniency in enforcing child support obligations. Nevertheless, prevailing institutional pressures and ideologies emphasizing parental responsibility have frequently led to punitive enforcement actions against NCPs unable to find employment due to geographical constraints. However, NCPs who are also ABAWDs are not considered in tandem, which is exemplified by the disparate application of administrative leniency between SNAP and child support policies. SNAP acknowledges and accommodates local employment conditions for ABAWDs through waivers, while the child support program often neglects these conditions for the same population. 

To address this gap, our research examines the relationship between county-level ABAWD waiver implementation and child support enforcement activities in Wisconsin from 1998 to 2020. We utilize difference-in-difference regression models analyzing data from the Wisconsin Administrative Data Core (WADC), aggregated to the county level, alongside a dataset identifying Wisconsin counties with ABAWD waivers annually. By comparing counties with high unemployment—distinguished by waiver receipt—we investigate how administrative discretion varies across programs serving low-income, working-age adults without custodial children. 

Our findings significantly enhance how we understand devolved policy authority and discretionary decision-making by exploring intersections between SNAP and child support—two policy domains seldom perceived as overlapping. Typically treated as separate populations, ABAWDs and NCPs individually face considerable barriers to social assistance. However, recognizing their intersection highlights critical nuances regarding how place-based employment limitations influence their access to support. Ultimately, our study reveals that administrative leniency in SNAP, based on geographic employment conditions, is inconsistently reflected in child support enforcement practices. Consequently, low-income adults simultaneously classified as ABAWDs and NCPs may experience compounding economic vulnerabilities and social exclusion, underscoring the importance of coordinated policy responses across related human services programs. 

Authors

• Maretta Darnell McDonald, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Renee Daniels, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Co-Author