Voices on child support
Ron Haskins
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution (quoted by a reporter)
The exact words were found in the primary source linked below (testimony, book page, report or article), at the page given.
"I don't think anyone thinks it's double dipping, especially because one of the major goals is to get more money to the mother so she can stay off welfare."
Source
Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support, The New York Times (Erik Eckholm), 2007-12-01, web page, no page numbers (article). Checked 2026-10-13.
Context
Quoted by a reporter (not Haskins' own writing) in a news article on states retaining child support collected for current/former welfare families to reimburse welfare costs. Haskins was rejecting the older 'double dipping' argument against passing collections through to mothers; he named cost to federal and state governments as the main obstacle to change.
The passage it comes from
When Congress set up the current child support system in the 1970s, recovering welfare costs was an explicit goal, with some experts arguing that it was only fair for fathers to repay the government for sustaining their offspring and that giving families the money was a form of "double dipping." But experience and research have suggested to most experts and state and federal officials from both parties that the policy is counterproductive -- driving fathers into the underground economy and leaving families more dependent on aid. Today, said Ron Haskins, a Republican expert at the Brookings Institution, "I don't think anyone thinks it's double dipping, especially because one of the major goals is to get more money to the mother so she can stay off welfare." The major obstacle to change, Mr. Haskins said, "has usually been that it cost both the federal government and the states money."
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