- Published for the State of California in 2010 by David M. Betson called “Appendix A: Parental Expenditures on Children: Rothbarth Estimates, “in Judicial Council of California, Review of Statewide Uniform Child Support Guidelines. San Francisco, California.
- Since it did not contain enough information for child support schedule, it was later updated for North Carolina. -It is also called BR4
- It used data from interview portion of CEX from first Qtr 2004 – first Qtr 2009 CES data
- While the CES conducted 152,289 quarterly interviews and 57,741 households were included, Uses data from 7,846 households – 2.937 households were childless and 4,909 were married couples with children.
- Households maintained in survey for five consecutive quarters, with households rotating in and out each quarter.
- The following restrictions on the sample were:
1. Household contained a married couple
2. Household contained six or less children
3. Household contained no other adults except parents
4. Household didn’t have a change in size during period
5. Household completed at least three completed interviews
6. Switched from expenditures to outlays since it captures finance changes and mortgage principal payments - It is currently used by seven states: Colorado, Connecticut, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wyoming
- As a proportion of total household expenditures, child rearing expenditures using the Rothbarth estimator are 24% for one child, 37% for two children, 45% for three children.