HPOG Helps Students Live the American Dream
July 15, 2015
By Emily Schmitt, Senior Social Science Research Analyst, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation
Behavioral economics stands at the intersection of psychology and economics and provides important insights into how people make decisions and behave. Because of the opportunity this presents for social policy we began asking the question: Can we harness these insights to improve outcomes in our programs?
In a new report from our work with state and local governments on the use of behavioral economics in human services, we find that reminders can be an effective and cost-efficient tool for increasing payments from non-custodial parents who owe child support.
The report shows that sending low cost (~$2.50 per person) reminders to parents produced a 2.9% increase in the number of parents who made at least one child support payment over four months. These parents did not have income withholding and did not already receive a reminder to pay their monthly support.
Our research team from MDRC worked with the Franklin County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Franklin County, Ohio, to design and test a low-cost payment reminder. The agency sought to increase the number of noncustodial parents making child support payments, as well as the total dollar amount of those payments. In particular, they focused on increasing payments from noncustodial parents who do not have income withholding and who thus need to take action each month to make a payment. The tests found that sending a reminder to parents who were not already receiving one led to an increase in payments.
The resulting payments translated into money that custodial families may not have otherwise received.
This new research comes out of our Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply behavioral economics to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. BIAS works with state and local partner agencies to design and test behavioral interventions in human services programs. Previously published work from this project describes our collaboration with the Texas Office of the Attorney General´s Child Support Division on child support order modifications.
