[Ways and Means Committee Print WMCP: 104-14]
[1996 Green Book]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office Online via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:wm014_09.104]
[1996 Green Book] SECTION 9. CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM *
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* The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996 changed this program; see appendix L for details.
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CONTENTS
Background
Overview
Demographic Trends
Program Trends
The Federal Role
The State Role
The Child Support Enforcement Process
Locating Absent Parents
Establishing Paternity
Establishing Orders
Reviewing and Modifying Orders
Promoting Medical Support
Collecting Child Support
Interstate Enforcement
Bankruptcy and Child Support Enforcement
Automated Systems
Audits and Financial Penalties
Assignment and Distribution of Child Support Collections
Funding of State Programs
How Effective is Child Support Enforcement?
Impact on Taxpayers
Impact on Poverty
Impact on National Child Support Payments
Legislative History
Statistical Tables
References
BACKGROUND
Overview
In 1950, when only a small minority of children were in
mother-only families, the Federal Government took its first
steps into the child support arena. Congress amended the Aid to
Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) law by requiring State
welfare agencies to notify law enforcement officials when
benefits were being furnished to a child who had been abandoned
by one of his parents. Presumably, local officials would then
undertake to locate nonresident parents and make them pay child
support. From 1950 to 1975, the Federal Government confined its
child support efforts to these welfare children. With this
exception, most Americans thought that child support
establishment and collection was a domestic relations issue
that should be dealt with at the State level by the courts.
By the early 1970s, however, Congress recognized that the
composition of the AFDC caseload had changed. In earlier years
the majority of children needed financial assistance because
their fathers had died; by the 1970s, the majority needed aid
because their parents were separated or divorced or because
their mother was never married to their father. The Child
Support Enforcement and Paternity Establishment program (CSE),
enacted in 1975, was a response by Congress to reduce public
expenditures on welfare by obtaining support from noncustodial
parents on an ongoing basis, to help non-AFDC families get
support so they could stay off public assistance, and to
establish paternity for children born outside marriage so child
support could be obtained for them.
The 1975 legislation (Public Law 93-647) added a new part D
to title IV of the Social Security Act. This statute, as
amended, authorizes Federal matching funds to be used for
enforcing support obligations by locating nonresident parents,
establishing paternity, establishing child support awards, and
collecting money. Since 1981, child support agencies have also
been permitted to collect spousal support on behalf of
custodial parents, and in 1984 they were required to petition
for medical support as part of most child support orders.
Basic responsibility for administering the program is left
to States, but the Federal Government plays a major role in:
dictating the major design features of State programs; funding,
monitoring and evaluating State programs; providing technical
assistance; and giving direct assistance to States in locating
absent parents and obtaining support payments. The program
requires the provision of child support enforcement services
for both AFDC and non-AFDC families and requires States to
publicize frequently, through public service announcements, the
availability of child support enforcement services, together
with information about the application fee and a telephone
number or address to obtain additional information. Local
family and domestic courts and administrative agencies handle
the actual establishment and enforcement of child support
obligations according to Federal, State, and local laws.
With minor exceptions, the child support program does not
provide services aimed at other issues between parents, such as
property settlement, custody, and access to children. These
issues are handled by local courts with the help of private
attorneys.
Any parent who needs help in locating an absent parent,
establishing paternity, establishing a support obligation, or
enforcing a support obligation may apply for services. Parents
receiving benefits (or who formerly received benefits) under
the AFDC Program, the federally assisted foster care program,
or the Medicaid Program, automatically receive services.
Services are free to such recipients, but others are charged up
to $25 for services. In the non-AFDC Program, States also can
charge fees on a sliding scale, pay the fee out of State funds,
or recover the fees from the noncustodial parent.
Demographic Trends
The need for an effective child support program is clearly
supported by a brief review of the demographic trends of the
American family. By 1994, there were an estimated 11.4 million
single-parent families with children under age 18; about 9.9
million (87 percent) maintained by the mother and roughly 1.6
million maintained by the father. It appears that the rate of
growth in the number of single parents has stabilized (Office
of Child Support, 1995a, p. 5). The average annual percent
increase in the number of one-parent families was 3.9 percent
from 1990-94 and 3.4 percent from 1980-90 as compared with 6
percent from 1970-80. In 1994, one-parent families comprised 31
percent of all families. The corresponding share of single-
parent families in 1970 was 13 percent. In 1994, about 39
percent of the mothers had never been married, 36 percent were
divorced, 21 percent were separated from their spouse, and
about 5 percent were widowed (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1994,
p. xviii).
Of equal concern, dynamic estimates indicate that at least
half of all children born in the United States during the late
1970s and early 1980s will live with a single parent before
reaching adulthood. For black children, the projection is about
80 percent (Bumpass, 1984). Currently, nearly one-fourth of the
69 million children under age 18 living in the United States
reside in a one-parent family. Moreover, a 1990 current
population survey indicated that about 16 percent of children
living in married-coupled families were living with a
stepparent. Although the number of families with a mother who
has divorced has tripled since 1970, the number with a mother
who has never married has increased fifteenfold from 248,000 to
3,829,000. In these latter cases, paternity must be determined
before the other parent has a legal obligation to financially
support the child. The 3.8 million families maintained by a
never-married mother in 1994 represent a major concern because
only about one-third of the children in these families have had
their paternity established; for the other two-thirds, a child
support obligation cannot be established until a paternity
determination is made.
Poverty is endemic among mother-headed families. In 1994,
44 percent of the 8.7 million families maintained solely by the
mother with children under 18 had incomes below the poverty
threshold. Almost 12 percent of these families were poor
despite the fact that the mother worked year round, full time.
Today, an unprecedented number of children live in single-
parent homes, nearly half are poor, and many lack adequate or
any support from the nonresident parent.
Program Trends
In response to these demographic trends, the Federal-State
child support program grew rapidly. By 1995, about half of all
child support eligible families were actually receiving
government funded child support services. Most of the
information in this chapter applies to the families receiving
these government services.
Table 9-1 summarizes trends for the child support program
since 1978. In 1995, almost $3 billion was spent by State child
support programs to collect $10.8 billion. The combined
Federal-State program had more than 51,600 employees. A sum of
$3.60 was collected for every $1 of administrative expense, up
by 25 percent from the low point of only $2.89 per dollar of
administrative expense in 1982, but down nearly 10 percent
since 1992, the year of peak child support efficiency. In
addition, over 5 million absent parents were located; 661,000
paternities were established; over 1 million support orders
were established; more than 3.4 million cases had collections;
269,333 families were removed from AFDC because of child
support collections (not shown in table 9-1); and 13.6 percent
of AFDC payments were recovered as a result of child support
enforcement.
These program trends demonstrate that more and more child
support activities and outcomes are achieved by the Federal-
State program. But whether these trends indicate program
success is a complex matter. We turn now to a detailed
explanation of the Federal-State child support program and both
its achievements and problems.
THE FEDERAL ROLE
The Federal statute requires the national child support
program to be administered by a separate organizational unit
under the control of a person designated by and reporting
directly to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS). Presently, this office is known as the Federal
Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). The Family Support
Act of 1988 required the appointment of an Assistant Secretary
for Family Support within HHS to administer a number of
programs, including the Child Support Enforcement Program.
Currently, this position is entitled the Assistant Secretary
for the Administration for Children and Families.
A primary responsibility of the assistant secretary is to
establish standards for State programs for locating absent
parents, establishing paternity, and obtaining child support
and support for the spouse (or former spouse) with whom the
child is living. In addition to this broad statutory mandate,
the assistant secretary is required to establish minimum
organizational and staffing requirements for State child
support agencies, and to review and approve State plans.
The statute also requires the assistant secretary to
provide technical assistance to States to help them establish
effective systems for collecting support and establishing
paternity. To fulfill this requirement, OCSE operates a
National Child Support Enforcement Reference Center as a
central location for the collection and dissemination of
information about State and local programs. OCSE also provides,
under a contract with the American Bar Association Child
Support Project, training and information dissemination on
legal issues to persons working in the field of child support
enforcement. Special initiatives, such as assisting major urban
areas in improving program performance, have also been
undertaken by OCSE.
TABLE 9-1.--SUMMARY OF NATIONAL CHILD SUPPORT PROGRAM STATISTICS, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1978-95
[Numbers in thousands, dollars in millions]
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Year
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1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
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Total child support collections.. $1,047 $1,478 $1,770 $2,378 $3,246 $4,605 $5,241 $6,010 $6,886 $7,965 $8,907 $9,850 $10,753
In 1995 dollars \1\.......... 2,407 2,715 2,726 3,395 4,363 5,783 6,281 6,861 7,483 8,386 9,394 10,129 10,753
Total AFDC collections \2\....... 472 603 786 1,000 1,225 1,486 1,593 1,750 1,984 2,259 2,416 2,550 2,693
Federal...................... 311 246 311 402 369 449 458 533 626 738 777 762 824
State........................ 148 274 354 448 424 525 563 620 700 787 847 891 941
Total non-AFDC collections....... 575 874 984 1,378 2,019 3,119 3,648 4,260 4,902 5,705 6,491 7,300 8,060
Total administrative expenditures 312 466 612 723 941 1,171 1,363 1,606 1,804 1,995 2,241 2,556 2,991
Federal...................... 236 349 459 507 633 804 938 1,061 1,212 1,343 1,517 1,741 2,081
State........................ 76 117 153 216 308 366 426 545 593 652 724 816 910
Federal incentive payments to
States and localities........... 54 72 107 134 158 222 266 264 278 299 339 407 400
Average number of AFDC cases in
which a collection was made..... 458 503 597 647 582 621 658 701 755 836 879 926 1,050
Average number of non-AFDC cases
in which a collection was made.. 249 243 448 547 786 1,083 1,247 1,363 1,555 1,749 1,958 2,169 2,405
Number of parents located........ 454 643 779 875 1,046 1,388 1,628 2,062 2,577 3,706 4,499 4,204 5,082
Number of paternities established 111 144 173 219 245 307 339 393 472 512 554 592 661
Number of support obligations
established..................... 315 374 462 573 731 871 938 1,022 \4\ 821 879 1,026 1,025 1,050
Percent of AFDC assistance
payments recovered through child
support collections............. (\3\) 5.2 6.8 7.0 8.6 9.8 10.0 10.3 10.7 11.4 12.0 12.5 13.6
Total child support collections
per dollar of total
administrative expenses......... 3.35 3.17 2.89 3.29 3.45 3.93 3.84 3.74 3.82 3.99 3.98 3.86 3.60
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\1\ Adjusted for inflation using fiscal CPI.
\2\ AFDC collections are divided into State/Federal shares and incentives are taken from the Federal share thereby reducing the Federal amounts.
\3\ Not available.
\4\ Data beginning in 1991 exclude modifications of support orders.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Child Support Enforcement amendments of 1984 (Public
Law 98-378) extended the research and demonstration authority
in section 1115 of the Social Security Act to the Child Support
Enforcement Program. This authority makes it possible for
States to test innovative approaches to support enforcement so
long as the modification does not disadvantage children in need
of support nor result in an increase in Federal AFDC costs. The
1984 amendments also authorize $15 million for each fiscal year
after 1986 for special project grants to promote improvement in
interstate enforcement.
The Assistant Secretary for Children and Families has full
responsibility for the evaluation of the Child Support
Enforcement Program. Audits are required at least every 3 years
to determine whether the standards and requirements prescribed
by law and regulations have been met. Under the penalty
provision, a State's AFDC matching funds must be reduced by an
amount equal to at least 1 but not more than 2 percent for the
first failure to comply substantially with the standards and
requirements, at least 2 but not more than 3 percent for the
second failure, and at least 3 but not more than 5 percent for
the third and subsequent failures.
The statute creates several Federal mechanisms to assist
States in performing their paternity and child support
enforcement functions. These include use of the Internal
Revenue Service, the Federal courts, and the Federal Parent
Locator Service (FPLS). The assistant secretary must approve a
State's application for permission to use the courts of the
United States to enforce orders upon a finding that either
another State has not enforced the court order of the
originating State within a reasonable time or Federal courts
are the only reasonable method of enforcing the order. Although
Congress authorized the use of Federal courts to enforce
interstate cases, this mechanism has gone unused, apparently
because States view it as costly and complex.
Finally, the statute requires the establishment of a
Federal Parent Locator Service to be used to find absent
parents in order to secure and enforce child support
obligations. Upon request, the Secretary of HHS must provide to
an authorized person the most recent address and place of
employment of any noncustodial parent if the information is
contained in the records of the Department of Health and Human
Services or can be obtained from any other department or agency
of the United States or of any State. The Secretary also must
make available the services of the FPLS to any State that
wishes to locate a missing parent or child for the purpose of
enforcing any Federal or State law involving the unlawful
taking or restraint of a child or the establishment or
maintenance of a child custody or visitation order.
THE STATE ROLE
The Social Security Act requires every State operating an
AFDC Program to conduct a child support enforcement program.
Federal law requires applicants for, and recipients of, AFDC to
assign their support rights to the State in order to receive
benefits. In addition, each applicant or recipient must
cooperate with the State to establish the paternity of a child
born outside marriage and to obtain child support payments.
AFDC recipients or applicants may be excused from the
requirement of cooperation if the AFDC agency determines that
good cause for noncooperation exists, taking into consideration
the best interests of the child on whose behalf aid is claimed.
This determination is made according to standards in Federal
regulations, the so-called ``good cause'' regulations. If good
cause is found not to exist and if the relative with whom a
child is living still refuses to cooperate, the relative is to
be disqualified from AFDC and the child's benefits are to be
sent in the form of a protective payment to a person other than
the caretaker relative. (The same is true of refusal to assign
to the State support rights: the child will not be disqualified
from AFDC, but will receive AFDC benefits only in the form of
protective payments.) Cooperation may be found to be against
the best interests of the child if cooperation can be
anticipated to result in physical or emotional harm to the
child or caretaker relative; if the child was conceived as a
result of incest or rape; or if legal procedures are underway
for the child's adoption.
Each State is required to designate a single and separate
organizational unit of State government to administer its child
support program. Earlier child support legislation, enacted in
1967, had required that the program be administered by the
welfare agency. The 1975 act deleted this requirement in order
to give each State the opportunity to select the most effective
administrative mechanism. Most States have placed the child
support agency within a social or human services umbrella
agency which also administers the AFDC Program. However,
Florida, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arkansas, and Alaska have
placed the agency in the department of revenue and Guam,
Hawaii, Texas, and the Virgin Islands have placed the agency in
the office of the attorney general. The law allows the programs
to be administered either on the State or local level. Ten
programs are locally administered. A few programs are State
administered in some counties and locally administered in
others.
States must have plans, approved by the director of OCSE,
which set forth the details of their child support program.
States must also enter into cooperative arrangements with
courts and law enforcement officials to assist the child
support agency in administering the program. These agreements
may include provision for reimbursing courts and law
enforcement officials for their assistance. States also must
operate a parent locator service to find absent parents, and
they must maintain full records of collections and
disbursements and otherwise maintain an adequate reporting
system.
In order to facilitate the collection of support in
interstate cases, a State must cooperate with other States in
establishing paternity, locating absent parents, and securing
compliance with an order issued by another State.
States are required to use several enforcement tools. They
must use the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax refund offset
procedure for AFDC and non-AFDC families, and they must also
determine periodically whether any individuals receiving
unemployment compensation owe child support. The State
Employment Security Agency (part of the Federal-State
Unemployment Insurance System), is required to withhold
unemployment benefits, and to pay the child support agency any
outstanding child support obligations established by an
agreement with the individual or through legal processes.
Other enforcement techniques States must use include:
1. Imposing liens against real and personal property for
amounts of overdue support;
2. Withholding State tax refunds payable to a parent who is
delinquent in support payments;
3. Reporting the amount of overdue support to a consumer
credit bureau upon request;
4. Requiring individuals who have demonstrated a pattern of
delinquent payments to post a bond or give some other
guarantee to secure payment of overdue support;
5. Establishing expedited processes within the State judicial
system or under administrative processes for obtaining
and enforcing child support orders, and, at the option
of the State, determining paternity;
6. Notifying each AFDC recipient at least once each year of
the amount of child support collected on behalf of that
recipient;
7. Permitting the establishment of paternity until a child's
18th birthday; and
8. At the option of the State, providing that payments in
cases not enforced by the State must be made through
the State's income withholding system if either the
custodial or noncustodial parent requests that they be
made in this manner.
Each State's plan must provide that the child support
agency will attempt to secure support for all AFDC children.
The State must also provide in its plan that it will undertake
to establish the paternity of an AFDC child born out of
wedlock. These requirements apply to all cases except those in
which the State finds, in accordance with standards established
by the Secretary, the best interests of the child would be
violated. For families whose AFDC eligibility ends due to the
receipt of or an increase in child support, States must
continue to provide child support enforcement services without
imposing the application fee.
Foster care agencies are required to take steps, where
appropriate, to secure an assignment to the State of any rights
to support on behalf of a child receiving foster care
maintenance payments under title IV-E of the Social Security
Act.
State child support agencies are also required to petition
to include medical support as part of any child support order
whenever health care coverage is available to the noncustodial
parent at a reasonable cost. And, if a family loses AFDC
eligibility as the result of increased collection of support
payments, the State must continue to provide Medicaid benefits
for 4 calendar months beginning with the month of
ineligibility. In addition, States must provide services to
families covered by Medicaid who are referred to the State IV-D
agency from the State Medicaid agency.
With respect to non-AFDC families, States must provide,
once an application is filed with the State agency, the same
child support collection and paternity determination services
which are provided for AFDC families. The State must charge
non-AFDC families an application fee of up to $25. The amount
of the maximum allowable fee may be adjusted periodically by
the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to
reflect changes in administrative costs. States may charge the
fee against the custodial parent, pay the fee out of State
funds, or recover it from the noncustodial parent.
States also have the option of charging a late payment fee
equal to between 3 and 6 percent of the amount of overdue
support. Late payment fees may be charged to noncustodial
parents and are to be collected only after the full amount of
the support has been paid to the child. States may also recover
costs in excess of the application fee from either the
custodial or noncustodial parent. If a State chooses to make
recovery from the custodial parent, it must have in effect a
procedure whereby all persons in the State who have authority
to order support are informed that such costs are to be
collected from the custodial parent.
Child support enforcement services must include the
enforcement of spousal support, but only if a support
obligation has been established with respect to the spouse, the
child and spouse are living in the same household, and child
support is being collected along with spousal support.
Finally, each State must comply with any other requirements
and standards that the Secretary determines to be necessary to
the establishment of an effective child support program.
THE CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT PROCESS
The goal of the child support program is to combine these
Federal and State responsibilities and activities into an
efficient machine that provides seven basic products: locating
absent parents, establishing paternity, establishing child
support orders, reviewing and modifying orders, promoting
medical support, collecting and distributing support, and
enforcing child support across State lines. Each of these
services deserves extensive discussion.
Locating Absent Parents
In pursuing cases, child support officials try to obtain a
great deal of information and several documents from the
custodial parent or other sources. These include the name and
address of the noncustodial parent; the noncustodial parent's
Social Security number; children's birth certificates; the
child support order; the divorce decree or separation
agreement; the name and address of the most recent employer of
the noncustodial parent; the names of friends and relatives or
organizations to which the noncustodial parent might belong;
information about income and assets; and any other information
about noncustodial parents that might help locate them. Once
this information is provided, it is used in strictest
confidence.
If the Child Support Enforcement Program cannot locate the
noncustodial parent with the information provided by the
custodial parent, it must try to locate the noncustodial parent
through the State parent locator service. The State uses
various information sources such as telephone directories,
motor vehicle registries, tax files, and employment and
unemployment records. The State also can ask the Federal Parent
Locator Service (FPLS) to locate the noncustodial parent. The
FPLS can access data from the Social Security Administration,
the Internal Revenue Service, the Selective Service System, the
Department of Defense, the Veterans' Administration, the
National Personnel Records Center, and State Employment
Security Agencies. The FPLS provides Social Security numbers,
addresses, and employer and wage information to State and local
child support agencies to establish and enforce child support
orders.
The FPLS obtains employer addresses and wage and
unemployment compensation information from the State employment
security agencies. This information is very useful in helping
child support officials work cases in which the custodial
parent and children live in one State and the noncustodial
parent lives or works in another State. Employment data are
updated quarterly by employers reporting to their State
employment security agency; unemployment data are updated
continually from State unemployment compensation payment
records.
The FPLS conducts weekly or biweekly matches with most of
the agencies listed above. Each agency runs the cases against
its data base and the names and Social Security numbers that
match are returned to FPLS and through FPLS to the requesting
State or local child support office.
Since October 1984, OCSE has participated in Project 1099
which provides State child support agencies access to all of
the earned and unearned income information reported to IRS
employers and financial institutions. Project 1099, named after
the IRS form on which both earned and unearned income is
reported, is a cooperative effort involving State child support
agencies, the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, and
the Internal Revenue Service. Examples of reported earned and
unearned incomes include: interest paid on savings accounts,
stocks and bonds, and distribution of dividends and capital
gains; rent or royalty payments; prizes, awards, or winnings;
fees paid directors or subcontractors; and unemployment
compensation. The Project 1099 information is used to locate
noncustodial parents and to verify income and employment.
Project 1099 also helps locate additional nonwage income and
assets of noncustodial parents who are employees as well as
income and asset sources of self-employed and nonwage earning
obligors.
Establishing Paternity
Paternity establishment is a prerequisite for obtaining a
child support order. In 1993, 31 percent of children born in
the United States were born to unmarried women. According to
the OCSE, paternity is established in less than one-third of
these cases. Without paternity established, these children have
no legal claim on their fathers' income. A major weakness of
the child support program is its poor performance in securing
paternity for such children. In addition to financial benefits,
establishing paternity can provide social, psychological, and
emotional benefits and in some cases the father's medical
history may be needed to give a child proper care.
In the 1980s, legislation was enacted that contained
provisions aimed at increasing the number of paternities
established. Public Law 98-378, the Child Support Enforcement
Amendments of 1984, required States to implement laws that
permitted paternity to be established until a child's 18th
birthday. Under the Family Support Act of 1988 (Public Law 100-
485), States are required to initiate the establishment of
paternity for all children under the age of 18, including those
for whom an action to establish paternity was previously
dismissed because of the existence of a statute of limitations
of less than 18 years. The 1988 law encourages States to create
simple civil procedures for establishing paternity in contested
cases, requires States to have all parties in a contested
paternity case take a genetic test upon the request of any
party, requires the Federal Government to pay 90 percent of the
laboratory costs of these tests, and permits States to charge
persons not receiving AFDC for the cost of establishing
paternity. The 1988 law also sets paternity establishment
standards for the States and stipulates that each State is
required, in administering any law involving the issuance of
birth certificates, to require both parents to furnish their
Social Security number, unless the State finds good cause for
not doing so.
Congress took additional action to improve paternity
establishment in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.
This law required States to have in effect, by October 1, 1993,
the following:
1. A simple civil process for voluntarily acknowledging
paternity under which the State must explain the rights
and responsibilities of acknowledging paternity and
afford due process safeguards. Procedures must include
a hospital-based program for the voluntary
acknowledgment of paternity during the period
immediately preceding or following the birth of a
child;
2. A law under which the voluntary acknowledgment of paternity
creates a rebuttable, or at State option, conclusive
presumption of paternity, and under which such
voluntary acknowledgments are admissible as evidence of
paternity;
3. A law under which the voluntary acknowledgment of paternity
must be recognized as a basis for seeking a support
order without requiring any further proceedings to
establish paternity;
4. Procedures which provide that any objection to genetic
testing results must be made in writing within a
specified number of days prior to any hearing at which
such results may be introduced in evidence; if no
objection is made, the test results must be admissible
as evidence of paternity without the need for
foundation testimony or other proof of authenticity or
accuracy;
5. A law which creates a rebuttable or, at the option of the
State, conclusive presumption of paternity upon genetic
testing results indicating a threshold probability of
the alleged father being the father of the child;
6. Procedures which require default orders in paternity cases
upon a showing that process has been served on the
defendant and whatever additional showing may be
required by State law; and
7. Expedited processes for paternity establishment in
contested cases and full faith and credit to
determinations of paternity made by other States.
The 1993 reforms also revised the mandatory paternity
establishment requirements imposed on States by the Family
Support Act of 1988. The most notable provision increased the
mandatory paternity establishment percentage, which is backed
up by financial penalties linked to a reduction of Federal
matching funds for the State's AFDC Program (see Audits and
Financial Penalties section).
While employing these laws and procedures to establish
paternity, States follow a predictable sequence of events. In
cases for which paternity is not voluntarily acknowledged
(which is still the majority of cases), the child support
agency locates the alleged father and brings him to court or
before an administrative agency where he can either acknowledge
or dispute paternity. If he claims he is not the father, the
court can require that he submit to parentage blood testing to
establish the probability that he is the father. If the father
denies paternity, a court usually decides the issue based on
scientific and testimonial evidence. Through the use of testing
techniques, a man may be excluded as a possible natural father,
in which case no further action against him is warranted. Most
States use one or more of several scientific methods for
establishing paternity. These include: ABO blood typing system,
human leukocyte antigen (HLA) testing, red cell enzyme and
serum protein electrophoresis, and DNA testing.
There are two types of testing procedures for paternity
cases: (1) probability of exclusion tests, and (2) probability
of paternity tests. Most laboratories perform probability of
exclusion tests. This type of testing can determine with 90-99
percent accuracy that a man is ``not'' the father of a given
child. There is a very high probability the test will exonerate
a falsely accused man (Office of Child Support Enforcement,
1985).
Since the question of paternity is essentially a scientific
one, it is important that the verification process include
available advanced scientific technology. Experts now agree
that use of the highly reliable deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
fingerprinting test greatly increases the likelihood of correct
identification of putative fathers. DNA tests can be used
either to exclude unlikely fathers or to establish a high
likelihood that a given man is the father (Office of Child
Support, 1990, see pp. 59-74). One expert, speaking at a recent
child support conference, summed up the effectiveness of DNA
testing as follows:
The DNA fingerprinting technique promises far superior
reliability than current blood grouping or HLA (human leukocyte
antigen) analyses. The probability of an unrelated individual
sharing the same patterns is practically zero. The ``DNA
fingerprinting'' test, developed in England in 1985, refines
the favorable statistics to an even greater degree, reducing
the probability that two unrelated individuals will have the
same DNA fingerprint to one in a quadrillion (Georgeson, 1989,
p. 568).
If the putative father is not excluded on the basis of the
scientific test results, authorities may still conclude on the
basis of witnesses, resemblance, and other evidence that they
do not have sufficient evidence to establish paternity and,
therefore, will drop charges against him. Tests resulting in
nonexclusion also may serve to convince the putative father
that he is, in fact, the father. If this occurs, a voluntary
admission often leads to a formal court order. When authorities
believe there is enough evidence to support the mother's
allegation, but the putative father continues to deny the
charges, the case proceeds to a formal adjudication of
paternity in a court of law (McKillop, 1981, pp. 22-23). Using
the results of the blood test and other evidence, the court or
the child support agency, often through an administrative
process, may dismiss the case or enter an order of paternity, a
prerequisite to obtaining a court order requiring a
noncustodial parent to pay support (U.S. General Accounting
Office, 1987).
In fiscal year 1995, 661,000 paternities were established,
up from 232,000 in fiscal year 1985. While the number of
paternities established through child support agencies reached
a record high in 1995, huge disparities exist among States. In
that year, for example, the percentage of children in the child
support program for whom paternity was established averaged 41
percent nationally, but ranged from 4 percent in the District
of Columbia to 80 percent in Wisconsin (see table 9-21 below).
Establishing Orders
A child support order legally obligates noncustodial
parents to provide financial support for their children and
stipulates the amount of the obligation (current weekly
obligation plus arrearages, if any) and how it is to be paid.
Many States have statutes that provide that, in the absence of
a child support award, the payment of AFDC benefits to the
child of a noncustodial parent creates a debt due from the
parent or parents in the amount of the AFDC provided. Other
States operate under the common law principle, which maintains
that a father is obligated to reimburse any person who has
provided his child with food, shelter, clothing, medical
attention, or education. States can establish child support
obligations either by judicial or administrative process.
Judicial and administrative systems
The courts have traditionally played a major role in the
child support program. Judges have established orders,
established paternity, and provided authority for all
enforcement activity. The child support literature generally
concludes that the judicial process offers several advantages,
especially by providing more adequate protection for the legal
rights of the noncustodial parent and by offering a wide range
of enforcement remedies, such as civil contempt and possible
incarceration. A major problem of using courts, however, is
that they are often cumbersome, expensive, and time consuming.
The advantages of an administrative process are very
compelling. These include offering quicker service because
documents do not have to be filed with the court clerk nor
await the signature of the judge, eliminating time consuming
problems in scheduling court time, providing a more uniform and
consistent obligation amount, and saving money because of
reduced court costs and attorney fees.
The 1984 child support amendments required States to limit
the role of the courts significantly by implementing
administrative or judicial expedited processes. Most child
support officials view this development as an improvement in
the child support program. An expedited judicial process is a
legal process in effect under a State's judicial system that
reduces the processing time of establishing and enforcing a
support order. To expedite case processing, a ``judge
surrogate'' is given authority to: take testimony and establish
a record, evaluate and make initial decisions, enter default
orders if the noncustodial parent does not respond to
``notice'' or other State ``service of process'' in a timely
manner, accept voluntary acknowledgement of support liability
and approve stipulated agreements to pay support, and if the
State establishes paternity using the expedited judicial
process, to accept voluntary acknowledgement of paternity.
Judge surrogates often are referred to as court masters,
referees, hearing officers, commissioners, or presiding
officers.
The purpose of an expedited administrative process is to
increase effectiveness and meet specified processing times in
child support cases and, if the State so chose, paternity
actions. The Federal regulations implementing this law specify
that 90 percent of cases must be processed within 3 months, 98
percent within 6 months, and 100 percent within 12 months.
The Federal regulations also contain additional
requirements related to the expedited process. Proceedings
conducted pursuant to either the expedited judicial or
expedited administrative process must be presided over by an
individual who is not a judge of the court. Orders established
by expedited process must have the same force and effect under
State law as orders established by full judicial process,
although either process may provide that a judge first ratify
the order. Within these broad limitations, each State is free
to design an expedited process that is best suited to its
administrative needs and legal traditions.
Determining the amount of support orders
Before October 1989, the decision of how much a parent
should pay for child support was left primarily to the
discretion of the court. Typically, judges examined financial
statements from mothers and fathers and established awards
based on children's needs. The resulting awards varied greatly.
Moreover, this case-by-case approach resulted in very low
awards. As late as 1991, the average amount of child support
received by custodial parents was $2,961, less than $250 per
month.
In an attempt to increase the use of objective criteria,
the 1984 child support amendments required each State to
establish, by October 1987, guidelines for determining child
support award amounts ``by law or by judicial or administrative
action'' \1\ and to make the guidelines available ``to all
judges and other officials who have the power to determine
child support awards within the State.'' Federal regulations
made the provision more specific: State child support
guidelines must be based on specific descriptive and numeric
criteria and result in a computation of the support obligation.
The 1984 provision did not make the guidelines binding on
judges and other officials who had the authority to establish
child support obligations. However, the Family Support Act of
1988 required States to pass legislation making the State child
support guidelines a ``rebuttable presumption'' in any judicial
or administrative proceeding and establishing the amount of the
order which results from the application of the State-
established guidelines as the correct amount to be awarded.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Fitzgerald v. Fitzgerald, No. 87-1259 (D.C. Ct. App. Oct. 10,
1989): In October 1989, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
struck down child support guidelines adopted in October 1987 in
response to the Federal requirement. The court held that the Superior
Court Committee that drafted the guidelines lacked authority to do so.
It did not rule on the fairness of the guidelines, which awarded
children a fixed fraction of the gross income of the noncustodial
parent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
States generally use one of three basic types of guidelines
to determine award amounts: ``Income shares,'' which is based
on the combined income of both parents (31 States);
``percentage of income,'' in which the number of eligible
children is used to determine a percentage of the noncustodial
parents' income to be paid in child support (15 States); and
``Melson-Delaware,'' which provides a minimum self-support
reserve for parents before the cost of rearing the children is
prorated between the parents to determine the award amount
(Delaware, Hawaii, West Virginia). Two jurisdictions (the
District of Columbia and Massachusetts) use variants of one or
more of these three approaches (Williams, 1994; see table 9-24
below).
The income shares approach is designed to ensure that the
children of divorced parents suffer the lowest possible decline
in standard of living. The approach is intended to ensure that
the child receives the same proportion of parental income that
he would have received if the parents lived together. The first
step in the income shares approach is to determine the combined
income of the two parents. A percentage of that combined
income, which varies by income level, is used to calculate a
``primary support obligation.'' The percentages decline as
income rises, although the absolute amount of the primary
support obligation increases with income. Many States add child
care costs and extraordinary medical expenses to the primary
support obligation. The resulting total child support
obligation is apportioned between the parents on the basis of
their incomes. The noncustodial parent's share is the child
support award (Office of Child Support, 1987, pp. II 67-80).
The percentage of income approach is based on the
noncustodial parent's gross income and the number of children
to be supported (the child support obligation is not adjusted
for the income of the custodial parent). The percentages vary
by State. In Wisconsin, a highly publicized percentage of
income guideline State, child support is based on the following
proportions of the noncustodial parent's gross income: one
child--17 percent; two children--25 percent; three children--29
percent; four children--31 percent; and five or more children--
34 percent. There is no self support reserve in this approach
nor is there separate treatment for child care or extraordinary
medical expenses. The States that use a percentage of income
approach are Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The Melson-Delaware formula starts with net income. \2\
After determining net income for each parent, a primary support
allowance is subtracted from each parent's income. This reserve
represents the minimum amount required for adults to meet their
own subsistence requirements. The next step is to determine a
primary support amount for each dependent child. Work-related
child care expenses and extraordinary medical expenses are
added to the child's primary support amount. The child's
primary support needs are then apportioned between the parents.
To ensure that children share in any additional income the
parents might have, a percentage of the parents' remaining
income is allocated among the children (the percentage is based
on the number of dependent children). The States that use the
Melson-Delaware approach are Delaware, Hawaii, and West
Virginia.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Net income equals income from employment and other sources plus
business expense accounts if they provide the parent with an
automobile, lunches, etc., minus income taxes based on maximum
allowable exemptions, other deductions required by law, deductions
required by an employer or union, legitimate business expenses, and
benefits such as medical insurance maintained for dependents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Award rates
In 1991, of the 11.5 million custodial parents of children
under the age of 21 whose other parent was not living in the
household, only 6.2 million or 54 percent had a child support
award. Award rates were higher for mothers than for fathers: 56
percent of the custodial mothers had an award versus 41 percent
of custodial fathers. About one-third of the 5.3 million
custodial parents without awards chose not to pursue a child
support award. In other cases, custodial parents were unable to
locate the noncustodial parent or the noncustodial parent was
unable to pay. Never-married custodial parents were the group
least likely to have a child support award. Only 27 percent of
never-married custodial parents had support awards compared
with 69 percent of divorced custodial parents. Moreover, black
custodial parents and custodial parents of Hispanic origin were
much less likely than their white counterparts to have child
support awards. About 64 percent of whites had child support
awards, compared with 35 percent of blacks and Hispanics (U.S.
Bureau of the Census, 1995, p. 13).
Unresolved issues
As noted by Garfinkel, Melli, and Robertson (1994), there
are a host of controversial issues associated with child
support awards. These include whether child care costs,
extraordinary medical expenses, and college costs are taken
into account in determining the support order; how the income
of the noncustodial parent is allocated between first and
subsequent families (e.g., whether the children from a second
marriage are provided child support payments equal to those of
the children from the first marriage); \3\ how the income of
stepparents is treated; whether a minimum child support award
level regardless of age or circumstance of the noncustodial
parent should be imposed; whether income earned as a result of
a custodial parent's participation in an AFDC work, education,
and training program is taken into account; and the duration of
the support order (i.e., does the support obligation end when
the child reaches age 18; what happens to arrearages).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Traditionally, the courts have taken the position that the
father's prior child support obligations take absolute precedence over
the needs of the new family. They have disregarded the father's plea
that his new responsibilities are a ``change in circumstance''
justifying a reduction in a prior child support award or at least
averting an increase.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviewing and Modifying Orders
Without periodic modifications, child support obligations
can become inadequate and inequitable. Historically, the only
way to modify a child support order was to require a party to
petition the court for a modification based on a ``change in
circumstances.'' What constituted a change in circumstances
sufficient to modify the order depended on the State and the
court. The person requesting modification was responsible for
filing the motion, serving notice, hiring a lawyer, and proving
a change in circumstances of sufficient magnitude to satisfy
statutory standards. The modification proceeding was a two step
process. First the court determined whether a modification was
appropriate. Next, the amount of the new obligation was
determined.
Because this approach to updating orders was so cumbersome,
the Family Support Act of 1988 required States both to use
guidelines as a rebuttable presumption in all proceedings for
the award of child support and to review and adjust child
support orders in accordance with the guidelines. These
provisions reflected Congressional intent to simplify the
updating of support orders by requiring a process in which the
standard for modification was the State child support
guidelines. They also reflect a recognition that the
traditional burden of proof for changing the amount of the
support order was a barrier to updating. Finally, the new law
signaled a need for States to at least expand, if not replace,
the traditional ``change in circumstances'' test as the legal
prerequisite for updating support orders by making State
guidelines the presumptively correct amount of support to be
paid (Federal Register, 1992, p. 61560).
The Family Support Act also requires States to review
guidelines at least once every 4 years and have procedures for
review and adjustment of orders, consistent with a plan
indicating how and when child support orders are to be reviewed
and adjusted. Review may take place at the request of either
parent subject to the order or at the request of a State child
support agency. Any adjustment to the award must be consistent
with the State's guidelines, which must be used as a rebuttable
presumption in establishing or adjusting the support order. The
Family Support Act also required States to review all orders
being enforced under the child support program within 36 months
after establishment or after the most recent review of the
order and to adjust the order in accord with the State's
guidelines.
Review is required in child support cases in which support
rights are assigned to the State, unless the State has
determined that review would not be in the best interests of
the child and neither parent has requested a review. This
provision applies to child support orders in cases in which
benefits under the AFDC, foster care, or Medicaid Programs are
currently being provided, but does not include orders for
former AFDC, foster care, or Medicaid cases, even if the State
retains an assignment of support rights for arrearages that
accumulated during the time the family was on welfare. In child
support cases in which there is no current assignment of
support rights to the State, including former recipients of
AFDC, foster care, or Medicaid benefits receiving continued
child support services, review is required at least once ever
36 months only if a parent requests it. If the review indicates
that adjustment of the support amount is appropriate, the State
must proceed to adjust the award accordingly.
The Family Support Act also required States to notify
parents in cases being enforced by the State both of their
right to request a review at least 30 days before it begins and
of any proposed adjustment or determination that there should
be no change in the award amount. In the latter case, the
parent must be given at least 30 days after notification to
initiate proceedings to challenge the proposed adjustment or
determination.
The frequency of review and updating of support orders has
increased greatly since the 1984 amendments. As a result,
several issues have become apparent. When an initial child
support amount is established under guidelines, it generally is
reasonable to apply the guidelines to later modification.
However, when newly adopted guidelines are used to modify old
orders, some noncustodial parents may have to pay substantially
higher child support. Noncustodial parents who decided to start
second families based on financial calculations which assumed
the amount of the original order argue that it is unfair for
States to use new State-established guidelines to update or
revise their preexisting award obligations (Malone, 1989, pp.
31-32). Other issues associated with updating child support
awards include the expected increased resources necessary to
review and update orders, and the disinclination of child
support staff to initiate downward modifications.
Another major issue in the modification of awards was that
18 States permitted retroactive modifications. The vast
majority of such retroactive modifications had the effect of
reducing the amount of child support ordered. Thus, for
example, an order for $200 a month for child support, which was
unpaid for 36 months, should accumulate an arrearage of $7,200.
Yet, if the obligor was brought to court, having made no prior
attempt to modify the order, the order might be reduced to $100
a month retroactive to 36 months prior to the date of
modification. This retroactive modification would reduce the
arrearage from $7,200 to $3,600. Cases such as this, which had
serious impacts on custodial parents and their children,
convinced Congress to take action.
Thus, in 1986 Congress enacted section 9103 of Public Law
99-509 (section 466(a)(9) of the Social Security Act) to change
State practices involving modification of child support
arrears. The provision required States to change their laws so
that any payment of child support, on and after the date due,
is a judgment (the official decision or finding of a court on
the respective rights and claims of the parties to an action)
by operation of law. The provision further requires that the
judgment be entitled to full faith and credit in the
originating State and in any other State. Full faith and credit
is a constitutional principle that the various States must
recognize the judgments of other States within the United
States and accord them the force and effect they would have in
their home State.
The 1986 provision also greatly restricts retroactive
modification to make it more difficult for courts and
administrative entities to forgive or reduce arrearages. More
specifically, orders can be retroactively modified only for a
period during which there is pending a petition for
modification and only from the date that notice of the petition
has been given to the custodial or noncustodial parent.
Promoting Medical Support
Section 16 of Public Law 98-378, enacted in 1984, requires
the Secretary of HHS to issue regulations to require that State
child support agencies petition for the inclusion of medical
support as part of any child support order whenever health care
coverage is available to the noncustodial parent at reasonable
cost. According to Federal regulations, any employment-related
or other group coverage is considered reasonable, under the
assumption that health insurance is inexpensive to the
employee/noncustodial parent. A 1993 study by Cooper and
Johnson that analyzed 1987 data from the Center for Health
Expenditures and Insurance Studies indicated that, for low-wage
(i.e., poor--income below poverty line) employees with
employer-provided family health insurance coverage, 77 percent
of the premium was paid for by the employer.
On October 16, 1985, OCSE published regulations amending
previous regulations and implementing section 16 of Public Law
98-378. The regulations require State child support agencies to
obtain basic medical support information and provide this
information to the State Medicaid agency. If the custodial
parent does not have satisfactory health insurance coverage,
the child support agency must petition the court or
administrative authority to include medical support in new or
modified support orders and inform the State Medicaid agency of
any new or modified support orders that include a medical
support obligation. The regulations also require child support
agencies to enforce medical support that has been ordered by a
court or administrative process. In addition, these regulations
permit the use of child support matching funds at the 66-
percent rate for required medical support activities. Before
these regulations were issued, medical support activities were
pursued by child support agencies only under optional
cooperative agreements with Medicaid agencies.
Some of the functions that the child support agency may
perform under a cooperative agreement with the Medicaid agency
include: receiving referrals from the Medicaid agency, locating
noncustodial parents, establishing paternity, determining
whether the noncustodial parent has a health insurance policy
or plan that covers the child, obtaining sufficient information
about the health insurance policy or plan to permit the filing
of a claim with the insurer, filing a claim with the insurer or
transmitting the necessary information to the Medicaid agency,
securing health insurance coverage through court or
administrative order (when it will not reduce the noncustodial
parent's ability to pay child support), and recovering amounts
necessary to reimburse medical assistance payments.
On September 16, 1988, OCSE issued regulations expanding
the medical support enforcement provisions. These regulations
require the child support agency to develop criteria to
identify existing child support cases that have a high
potential for obtaining medical support, and to petition the
court or administrative authority to modify support orders to
include medical support for targeted cases even if no other
modification is anticipated. The child support agency also is
required to provide the custodial parent with information
regarding the health insurance coverage obtained by the
noncustodial parent for the child. Moreover, the regulation
deletes the condition that child support agencies may secure
health insurance coverage under a cooperative agreement only
when it will not reduce the noncustodial parent's ability to
pay child support. The purpose of the medical support
provisions is to expand the number
of children for whom private health insurance coverage is
obtained by increasing the availability of third party
resources to pay for medical care and thereby reduce Medicaid
costs for both the States and the Federal Government.
Before late 1993, employees covered under their employer's
health care plans generally could provide coverage to their
children only if the children lived with the employee. However,
as a result of divorce proceedings, employees often lost
custody of their children but were nonetheless required to
provide their health care coverage. While the employee would be
obliged to follow the court's directive, the employer that
sponsored the employee's health care plan was under no similar
obligation. Even if the court ordered the employer to continue
health care coverage for the nonresident child of their
employee, the employer would be under no legal obligation to do
so (Shulman, 1994, pp. 1-2). Aware of this situation, Congress
took the following legislative action in the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1993:
1. Insurers were prohibited from denying enrollment of a child
under the health insurance coverage of the child's
parent on the grounds that the child was born out of
wedlock, is not claimed as a dependent on the parent's
Federal income tax return, or does not reside with the
parent or in the insurer's service area;
2. Insurers and employers were required, in any case in which
a parent is required by court order to provide health
coverage for a child and the child is otherwise
eligible for family health coverage through the
insurer: (a) to permit the parent, without regard to
any enrollment season restrictions, to enroll the child
under such family coverage; (b) if the parent fails to
provide health insurance coverage for a child, to
enroll the child upon application by the child's other
parent or the State child support or Medicaid agency;
and (c) with respect to employers, not to disenroll the
child unless there is satisfactory written evidence
that the order is no longer in effect, or the child is
or will be enrolled in comparable health coverage
through another insurer that will take effect not later
than the effective date of the disenrollment;
3. Employers doing business in the State, if they offer health
insurance and if a court order is in effect, were
required to withhold from the employee's compensation
the employee's share of premiums for health insurance
and to pay that share to the insurer. The Secretary of
HHS may provide by regulation for such exceptions to
this requirement (and other requirements described
above that apply to employers) as the Secretary
determines necessary to ensure compliance with an
order, or with the limits on withholding that are
specified in section 303(b) of the Consumer Credit
Protection Act;
4. Insurers were prohibited from imposing requirements on a
State agency acting as an agent or assignee of an
individual eligible for medical assistance that are
different from requirements applicable to an agent or
assignee of any other individual;
5. Insurers were required, in the case of a child who has
coverage through the insurer of a noncustodial parent:
(a) to provide the custodial parent with the
information necessary for the child to obtain benefits;
(b) to permit the custodial parent (or provider, with
the custodial parent's approval) to submit claims for
covered services without the approval of the
noncustodial parent; and (c) to make payment on claims
directly to the custodial parent, the provider, or the
State agency; and
6. The State Medicaid agency was permitted to garnish the
wages, salary, or other employment income of, and to
withhold State tax refunds to, any person who: (a) is
required by court or administrative order to provide
health insurance coverage to an individual eligible for
Medicaid; (b) has received payment from a third party
for the costs of medical services to that individual;
and (c) has not reimbursed either the individual or the
provider. The amount subject to garnishment or
withholding is the amount required to reimburse the
State agency for expenditures for costs of medical
services provided under the Medicaid Program. Claims
for current or past due child support take priority
over any claims for the costs of medical services.
These provisions appear to be having an impact on the
number of children in single-parent families with medical
coverage. According to OCSE data, 58 percent of support orders
established in fiscal year 1994 included health insurance, up
from 46 percent in fiscal year 1991. Nevertheless, only 32
percent of support orders enforced or modified in fiscal year
1994 included health insurance, down slightly from 35 percent
in 1991. These figures indicate that many children still lack
coverage. One way to increase medical support may be to require
withholding of health insurance premiums in all cases with
medical support orders (Gordon, 1994).
Collecting Child Support
Local courts and child support enforcement agencies attempt
to collect child support when the noncustodial parent does not
pay. The most important collection method is wage withholding.
Other techniques for enforcing payments include regular
billings, delinquency notices, liens on property, offset of
unemployment compensation payments, seizure and sale of
property, reporting arrearages to credit agencies, garnishment
of wages, seizure of State and Federal income tax refunds, and
Federal imprisonment, fines or both.
In addition to approaches authorized by the Federal
Government through the child support program, States use a
variety of other collection techniques. In fact, States have
been at the forefront in implementing innovative approaches.
Some States revoke or deny various types of licenses (drivers',
business, occupational, recreational) to persons who are
delinquent in their child support payments; some States attach
lottery winnings and insurance settlements of debtor parents;
and some States hire private collection agencies to collect
child support payments. Some States even bring charges of
criminal nonsupport or civil or criminal contempt of court
against noncustodial parents who fail to pay child support.
These court proceedings usually involve much time because of
court backlogs, delays, and continuances. Once a court decides
the case, noncustodial parents are often given probation or
suspended sentences, and occasionally they are even awarded
lower support payments and only partial payment of arrearages.
To combat problems associated with court delays, the child
support statute requires States to implement expedited
processes under the State judicial system or State
administrative processes for obtaining and enforcing support
orders.
Given the pivotal role of collections in the child support
process, this section now turns to detailed discussion of the
most effective collections procedures. Summary data on the
effectiveness of four of the most effective collection methods
are presented in table 9-2.
Wage withholding
The Family Support Act of 1988 greatly expanded wage
withholding by requiring immediate withholding to begin in
November 1990 for all new or modified orders being enforced by
States. Equally important, States were required to implement
immediate wage withholding in all support orders initially
issued on or after January 1, 1994, regardless of whether a
parent has applied for child support services.
The child support amendments of 1984 also required that
States have in effect two distinct procedures for withholding
wages of noncustodial parents. First, for existing cases
enforced through the child support agency, States were required
to impose wage withholding whenever an arrearage accrued that
was equal to the amount of support payable for 1 month. Second,
for all child support cases, all new or modified orders were
required to include a provision for wage withholding when an
arrearage occurs. The intent of the second procedure was to
ensure that orders not enforced through the child support
agency contain the authority necessary to permit wage
withholding to be initiated by someone other than the child
support agency.
According to the Federal statute, State due process
requirements govern the scope of notice that must be provided
to an obligor (i.e., noncustodial parent) when withholding is
triggered. As a general rule, the noncustodial parent is
entitled to advance notice of the withholding procedure. This
notice, where required, must inform the noncustodial parent of
the following: the amount that will be withheld; the
application of withholding to any current or subsequent period
of employment; the procedures available for contesting the
withholding and the sole basis for objection (i.e., mistake of
fact); the period allotted to contest the withholding and the
result of failure to contact the State within this timeframe
(i.e., issuance of notification to the employer to begin
withholding); and the steps the State will take if the
noncustodial parent contests the withholding, including the
procedure to resolve such contests.
If the noncustodial parent contests the withholding notice,
the State must conduct a hearing, determine if the withholding
is valid, notify the noncustodial parent of the decision, and
notify the employer to commence the deductions if withholding
is upheld. All of this must occur within 45 days of the initial
notice of withholding. Whether a State uses a judicial or an
administrative process, the only basis for a hearing is a
factual mistake about the amount owed (current, arrearage or
both) or the identity of the noncustodial parent.
TABLE 9-2.--CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTIONS MADE BY VARIOUS ENFORCEMENT TECHNIQUES, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1989-95
[Dollars in millions]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Child support collections Percent of total collections
Enforcement technique -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1989 1991 1993 1994 1995 1989 1991 1993 1994 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wage withholding.................................................. $2,144 $3,266 $4,743 $5,429 $6,111 40.9 47.4 53.2 55.0 56.8
Federal income tax offset......................................... 411 476 570 623 734 7.9 6.9 6.4 6.3 6.8
State income tax offset........................................... 62 72 78 88 97 1.2 1.0 0.9 0.9 0.9
Unemployment compensation intercept............................... 54 143 286 223 187 1.0 2.1 3.2 2.3 1.7
Other \1\......................................................... 2,570 2,929 3,232 3,506 3,624 49.0 42.6 36.3 35.5 33.7
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Total collections........................................... $5,241 $6,886 $8,907 $9,869 $10,753 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
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\1\ The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) does not designate the source of most of these collections. According to the OCSE, the majority of
collections in the other category came from noncustodial parents who were complying with their support orders by sending their payments to the child
support agency. Moreover, the OCSE officials maintain that reliability of collection data lessen when specified by techniques of collection.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
When withholding is uncontested or when a contested case is
resolved in favor of withholding, the administering agency must
serve a withholding notice on the employer. The employer is
required to withhold as much of the noncustodial parent's wages
as is necessary to comply with the order, including the current
support amount plus an amount to be applied toward liquidation
of any arrearage. In addition, the employer may retain a fee to
offset the administrative cost of implementing withholding.
Employer fees per wage withholding transaction range from
nothing to $3 per pay period to $5 per attachment to $10 per
month (Office of Child Support, 1986, p. 7).
The Federal Consumer Credit Protection Act limits
garnishment to 50 percent of disposable earnings for a
noncustodial parent who is the head of a household, and 60
percent for a noncustodial parent who is not supporting a
second family. These percentages increase by 5 percentage
points, to 55 and 65 percent respectively, when the arrearages
represent support that was due more than 12 weeks before the
current pay period.
Upon receiving a withholding notice, the employer must
begin withholding the appropriate amount of the obligor's wages
no later than the first pay period that occurs after 14 days
following the date the notice was mailed. The 1984 amendments
regulate the language in State statutes on the other rights and
liabilities of the employer. For instance, the employer is
subject to a fine for discharging a noncustodial parent or
taking other forms of retaliation as a result of a withholding
order. In addition, the employer is held liable for amounts not
withheld as directed.
In addition to being able to charge the noncustodial parent
a fee for the administrative costs associated with wage
withholding, the employer can combine all support payments
required to be withheld for multiple obligors into a single
payment and forward it to the child support agency or court
with a list of the cases to which the payments apply. The
employer need not vary from his normal pay and disbursement
cycle to comply with withholding orders; however, support
payments must be forwarded to the State or other designated
agency within 10 days of the date on which the noncustodial
parent is paid.
When the noncustodial parent changes jobs, the previous
employer must notify the court or agency that entered the
withholding order. The State must then notify the new employer
or income source to begin withholding from the obligor's wages.
In addition, States must develop procedures to terminate income
withholding orders when all of the children are emancipated and
no arrearage exists.
As shown in table 9-2, the Congressional emphasis on wage
withholding has paid off handsomely. Not only has the total
amount of support collected through wage withholding increased
each year, reaching $6.1 billion in 1995, but the percentage of
total collections achieved through wage withholding has also
increased steadily, growing from about 41 percent in 1989 to
nearly 57 percent in 1995.
Federal income tax refund offset
Under this program, the IRS, operating on request from a
State filed through the Secretary of HHS, simply intercepts tax
returns and deducts the amount of certified child support
arrearages. The money is then sent to the State for
distribution. The availability of the IRS collection mechanism
for child support was strengthened by the Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act of 1981 (Public Law 97-35). IRS can now
withhold past due support from Federal tax refunds upon a
simple showing by the State that an individual owes at least
$150 in past due support which has been assigned to the State
as a condition of AFDC eligibility. The withheld amount is sent
to the State agency, together with notice of the taxpayer's
current address.
The 1984 amendments created a similar IRS offset program
for non-AFDC families owed child support. States must submit to
the IRS for withholding the names of absent parents who have
arrearages of at least $500 and who, on the basis of current
payment patterns and the enforcement efforts that have been
made, are unlikely to pay the arrearage before the IRS offset
can occur. The law establishes specific notice requirements and
mandates that the noncustodial parent and his spouse (if any)
be informed of the impending use of the tax offset procedure.
The purpose of this notice is to protect the unobligated
spouse's portion of the tax refund. The 1988 provision applied
to refunds payable after December 31, 1985, and before January
1, 1991. Public Law 101-508, enacted in 1990, makes permanent
the IRS offset program for non-AFDC families.
In fiscal year 1995, according to IRS, more than 1 million
cases were offset. The total amount intercepted was $804
million, up by a factor of four since 1985.
State income tax refund offset
The child support amendments of 1984 mandate that States
increase the effectiveness of the child support program by,
among other things, enacting several collection procedures.
Among the required procedures is the interception of State
income tax refunds payable to noncustodial parents up to the
amount of overdue support. As in the case of liens and bonds,
this procedure need not be used in cases found inappropriate
under State guidelines.
The State tax intercept program allows a State to collect
overdue child support payments by intercepting State tax
refunds due a noncustodial parent. The State tax refund is
applied to a support arrearage to reduce or eliminate through
an ``offset'' the debt of an obligor that is owed either to the
State or to the custodial parent.
In order for the State tax refund offset to work
effectively, cooperation between the State's department of
revenue and the child support agency is crucial. The names and
Social Security numbers of delinquent noncustodial parents are
submitted to the department of revenue for matching with tax
return forms. If a match occurs and a refund is due, the refund
or a portion of it is transferred from the State department of
revenue to the child support agency and then credited to the
appropriate noncustodial parent to offset his support debt. The
child support agency must give advance notice of the impending
offset to the noncustodial parent and must also inform him of
the process for contesting and resolving the proposed action.
If the custodial parent does not respond to the notice, the
money is intercepted and forwarded to the child support agency
for distribution.
In fiscal year 1995, the State tax intercept program
collected $97 million (table 9-2). Unlike the Federal program,
which requires that States certify a specified amount before
the offset can be applied ($150 for AFDC families and $500 for
non-AFDC families), States choose their own level for
certification. In many States, the amount is the same for both
AFDC and non-AFDC families. Although the amounts vary greatly
from State to State, the amount in the typical State is about
$100.
Unemployment compensation intercept
Public Law 97-35, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of
1981, requires State child support agencies to determine on a
periodic basis whether individuals receiving unemployment
compensation owe support obligations that are not being met.
The Act also requires child support agencies to enforce support
obligations in accord with State-developed guidelines for
obtaining an agreement with the individual to have a specified
amount of support withheld from unemployment compensation or,
in the absence of an agreement, for bringing legal proceedings
to require the withholding. The child support agency must
reimburse the State employment security agency for the
administrative costs attributable to withholding unemployment
compensation.
The unemployment compensation intercept program collected
$187 million in fiscal year 1995 (table 9-2). A number of
States, especially those with high levels of unemployment (but
where the noncustodial parent has had some attachment to the
labor force), are finding that the unemployment offset
procedure can raise collections significantly.
Property liens
A lien is a legal claim on someone's property as security
against a just debt. The use of liens for child support
enforcement was characterized during congressional debate on
the child support amendments of 1984 as ``simple to execute and
cost effective and a catalyst for an absent parent to pay past
due support in order to clear title to the property in
question'' (U.S. House, 1983). The Ways and Means Committee
report stated that liens would complement the income
withholding provisions of the 1984 law and be particularly
helpful in enforcing support payments owed by noncustodial
parents with substantial assets or income but who are not
salaried employees.
The 1984 legislation required States to enact laws and
implement ``procedures under which liens are imposed against
real property for amount of overdue support owed by an absent
parent who resides or owns property in the State.'' Liens can
apply to property such as land, vehicles, houses, antique
furniture, and livestock. The law provides, however, that
States need not use liens in cases in which, on the basis of
guidelines that generally are available to the public, it
determines that lien procedures would be inappropriate. This
provision implicitly requires States to develop guidelines
about use of liens.
Generally, a lien for delinquent child support is a
statutorily created mechanism by which an obligee obtains a
nonpossessory interest in property belonging to the
noncustodial parent. The interest of the custodial parent is a
slumbering interest that allows the noncustodial parent to
retain possession of the property, but affects the noncustodial
parent's ability to transfer ownership of the property to
anyone else. A child support lien converts the custodial parent
from an unsecured to a secured creditor. As such, it gives the
custodial parent priority over unsecured creditors and
subsequent secured creditors. In some States a lien is
established automatically upon entry of a support order and the
first incidence of noncompliance by the obligor. Frequently,
the mere imposition of a lien will motivate the delinquent
parent to do whatever is necessary to remove the lien (i.e.,
pay past due support). When this is not the case, it may become
necessary to enforce the lien. Liens are not self-executory.
They merely impede the debtor's ability to transfer property.
If a lien exists, a debtor must satisfy the judgment before the
property may be sold or transferred. However, it is not
necessary for the obligee to wait until the obligor tries to
transfer the property before taking action. The obligee may
enforce her judgment by execution and levy against the property
if she believes the amount of equity in the property justifies
execution.
Several States have increased their use of liens by
identifying individuals who possess appropriate assets through
use of information obtained from Project 1099. Initiated in
1984 to assist in location efforts, since the fall of 1988
Project 1099 has routinely provided wage and employer
information as well as location and asset information on
noncustodial parents.
Bonds, securities, and other guarantees
The 1984 child support amendments require States to have in
effect and use procedures under which noncustodial parents must
post security, bond, or some other guarantee to secure payment
of overdue child support. This technique is useful where
significant assets exist although the noncustodial parent's
income is sporadic, seasonal, or derived from self-employment
not accessible to more traditional enforcement methods. As in
the case of liens, this procedure need not be used in cases
found inappropriate under State guidelines. The State
guidelines should define and target assets that can
appropriately be sought to secure or guarantee payment (but not
hinder or prevent the noncustodial parent from effectively
pursuing his livelihood).
IRS full collection process
Since 1975, Congress has authorized the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) to collect certain child support arrearages as if
they were delinquent Federal taxes. This method is known as the
IRS full collection process. It works as follows. The Secretary
of HHS must, upon the request of a State, certify to the
Secretary of Treasury for collection by the IRS any amounts
identified by the State as delinquent child support. The
Secretary of HHS may certify only the amounts delinquent under
a court or administrative order, and only upon a showing by the
State that it has made diligent and reasonable efforts to
collect amounts due using its own collection mechanisms. States
must reimburse the Federal Government for any costs involved in
making the collections. This full collection process is used
only when there is a good chance that the IRS can make a
collection and only for cases in which a child support
obligation is delinquent and the amount owed has been certified
to be at least $750. Use by the States of this regular IRS
collection mechanism, which may include seizure of property,
freezing of accounts, and use of other aggressive procedures,
has been relatively infrequent. In fiscal year 1994,
collections were made in only 327 cases nationwide, for a total
collection of $532,618.
Credit bureau reporting
The 1984 Federal child support legislation required States
to develop procedures for providing child support debt
information to credit reporting agencies (sometimes referred to
as credit bureaus). The primary purposes for reporting
delinquent child support payers to credit reporting agencies
are to discourage noncustodial parents from not making their
child support payments, to prevent the undeserved extension of
credit, and to maintain the noncustodial parent's ability to
pay his child support obligation. Other benefits include access
by child support agencies to address, employment, and asset
information.
The 1984 amendments require States to report overdue child
support obligations exceeding $1,000 to consumer reporting
agencies if such information is requested by the credit bureau.
States have the option of reporting in cases in which the
noncustodial parent is less than $1,000 in arrears. States must
provide noncustodial parents with advance notice of intent to
release information on their child support arrearage and an
opportunity for them to contest the accuracy of the
information. The child support agency may charge the credit
bureau a fee for the information.
Although some States and counties had agreements in place
with credit bureaus to obtain information about the location of
absent parents, the 1984 provision requires States to authorize
the routine transfer of information concerning overdue child
support to credit bureaus on a much broader basis. Moreover, it
is in the interest of credit bureaus to request such
information because overdue child support adversely affects an
obligated parent's ability to pay other debts.
Public Law 102-537, the Ted Weiss Child Support Enforcement
Act of 1992, amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require
consumer credit reporting agencies to include in any consumer
report information on child support delinquencies. The
information is provided by or verified by State or local child
support agencies. Public Law 103-432, enacted in October 1994,
includes a provision that requires States to periodically
report to consumer reporting agencies the name of parents owing
at least 2 months of overdue child support, and the amount of
the child support overdue.
Federal garnishment
The 1975 child support legislation included a provision
allowing garnishment of wages and other payments by the Federal
Government for enforcement of child support and alimony
obligations. The law also provided that moneys, payable by the
United States to any individual for employment, are subject to
legal proceedings brought for the enforcement of child support
or alimony. The law sets forth in detail the procedures that
must be followed for service of legal process and specifies
that the term ``based upon remuneration for employment''
includes wages, periodic benefits for the payment of pensions,
retirement pay including Social Security, and other kinds of
Federal payments. Several sources of Federal payments, however,
may not be garnished. These include any payment as compensation
for death under any Federal program, Federal black lung
benefits, veterans' pensions or compensation benefits for a
service-related disability or death, and amounts paid to defray
employment-related expenses.
Military allotments
Child support enforcement workers face unique difficulties
when working on cases in which the absent parent is an active
duty member of the military service. Learning to work through
military channels can prove both challenging and frustrating,
especially if the child support agency is not near a military
base. As a result, military cases are often ignored or not
given sufficient attention (Office of Child Support, 1991).
Public Law 97-248, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility
Act of 1982, requires allotments from the pay and allowances of
any active duty member of the uniformed service who fails to
make child or spousal support payments. This requirement arises
when the service member fails to make support payments in an
amount at least equal to the value of 2 months' worth of
support. Provisions of the Federal Consumer Credit Protection
Act apply, limiting the percentage of the member's pay that is
subject to allotment. The amount of the allotment is the amount
of the support payment, as established under a legally
enforceable administrative or judicial order.
Since October 1, 1995, the Department of Defense has
consolidated its garnishment operations at the Defense Finance
and Accounting Service in Cleveland, Ohio. Support orders
received by the Service are processed immediately and notices
are sent to the appropriate military pay center to start
payments in the first pay cycle (Office of Child Support,
1995c).
Small business loans
The 103d Congress passed legislation, the Small Business
Administration Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 1994
(Public Law 103-403), which included the requirement that
recipients of financial assistance from the Small Business
Administration, including direct loans and loan guarantees,
must certify that the recipient is not more than 60 days
delinquent in the payment of child support. The new law
requires the administration to promulgate, no later than 6
months after enactment, regulations to enforce compliance with
the provision.
Other provisions
On February 27, 1995, President Clinton signed an Executive
order establishing the executive branch of the Federal
Government, including its civilian employees and the uniformed
services members, as a model employer in promoting and
facilitating the establishment and enforcement of child
support. The Executive order states that the Federal Government
is the Nation's largest single employer and as such should set
an example of leadership and encouragement in ensuring that all
children are properly supported. Among other measures, the
order requires the Federal agencies and the uniformed services
to cooperate fully in efforts to establish paternity and child
support orders and to enforce the collection of child and
medical support. The order also requires Federal agencies to
provide information to their personnel concerning the services
that are available to them and to ensure that their children
are provided the support to which they are legally entitled
(Office of Child Support, 1995b).
Interstate Enforcement
The most difficult child support orders to enforce are
interstate cases. States are required to cooperate in
interstate child support enforcement, but problems arise from
the autonomy of local courts. Family law has traditionally been
under the jurisdiction of State and local governments, and
citizens fall under the jurisdiction of the courts where they
live.
State laws require parents to be responsible for the
financial support of their children. During the 1930s and
1940s, such laws were used to establish and enforce support
obligations when the noncustodial parent, custodial parent, and
child lived in the same State. But when noncustodial parents
lived out of State, enforcing child support was cumbersome and
ineffective. Often the only option in these cases was to
extradite the noncustodial parent and, when successful, to jail
the person for nonsupport. Extradition is the process used to
bring an obligor charged with or convicted of a crime (in this
case, criminal nonsupport) from an asylum State back to the
State where the children are located. This procedure, rarely
used, generally punished the irresponsible parent, but left the
abandoned family without financial support.
A University of Michigan study (Hill, 1988) of separated
parents found that 12 percent lived in different States 1 year
after divorce or separation. That proportion increased to 25
percent after 3 years, and to 40 percent after 8 years.
Estimates based on the Federal Income Tax Refund Offset Program
and other sources suggest that approximately 30 percent of all
child support cases involve interstate residency of the
custodial and noncustodial parents (Weaver & Williams, 1989, p.
510). According to U.S. Census Bureau data (1991), 20 percent
of noncustodial parents lived in a different State than their
children, 3 percent lived overseas, and the residence of 11
percent of the noncustodial parents was unknown.
Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA)
Starting in 1950, interstate cooperation was promoted
through the adoption by the States of URESA. This act, which
was first proposed by the National Conference of Commissioners
on Uniform State Laws in 1950, has been enacted in all 50
States, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the
Virgin Islands. The act was amended in 1952 and 1958 and
revised in 1968. Thus, even though every State has passed some
provisions of URESA, many provisions vary greatly from State to
State. URESA, in short, is uniform in name only.
The purpose of URESA was to provide a system for the
interstate enforcement of support orders without requiring the
person seeking support to go (or have her legal representative
go) to the State in which the noncustodial parent resided.
Where the URESA provisions between the two States are
compatible, the law can be used to establish paternity, locate
an absent parent, and establish, modify, or enforce a support
order across State lines. However, some observers note that the
use of URESA procedures often result in lower orders for both
current support and arrearages. They also contend that few
child support agencies attempt to use URESA procedures to
establish paternity or to obtain a modification in a support
order.
Long arm statutes
Unlike URESA, interstate cases established or enforced by
long arm statutes use the court system in the State of the
custodial parent rather than that of the noncustodial parent.
When a person commits certain acts in a State of which he is
not a resident, that person may be subjecting himself to the
jurisdiction of that State. The long arm of the law of the
State where the event occurs may reach out to grab the out-of-
State person so that issues relating to the event may be
resolved where it happened. Under the long arm procedure, the
State must authorize by statute that the acts allegedly
committed by the defendant are those that subject the defendant
to the State's jurisdiction. An example is a paternity statute
stating that if conception takes place in the State and the
child lives in the State, the State may exercise jurisdiction
over the alleged father even if he lives in another State. Long
arm statute language usually extends the State's jurisdiction
over an out-of-State defendant to the maximum extent permitted
by the U.S. Constitution under the 14th amendment's due process
clause. Long arm statutes may be used to establish paternity,
establish support awards, and enforce support orders.
Federal courts
The 1975 child support law mandated that the State plan for
child support require States to cooperate with other States in
establishing paternity, locating absent parents, and securing
compliance with court orders. Further, it authorized the use of
Federal courts as a last resort to enforce an existing order in
another State if that State were uncooperative.
Section 460 of the Social Security Act states that the
district courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction,
without regard to any amount in controversy, to hear and
determine any civil action certified by the Secretary of HHS
under section 452(a)(8) of the act. A civil action under
section 460 may be brought in any judicial district in which
the claim arose, the plaintiff resides, or the defendant
resides. Section 452(a)(8) states that the Secretary of HHS
shall receive applications from States for permission to use
the courts of the United States to enforce court orders for
support against noncustodial parents. The Secretary must
approve applications if she finds both that a given State has
not enforced a court order of another State within a reasonable
time and that using the Federal courts is the only reasonable
method of enforcing the order.
As a condition to obtaining certification from the
Secretary, the child support agency of the initiating State
must give the child support agency of the responding State at
least 60 days to enforce the order as well as a 30-day warning
of its intent to seek enforcement in Federal court. If the
initiating State receives no response within the 30-day limit,
or if the response is unsatisfactory, the initiating State may
apply to the OCSE Regional Office for certification. The
application must attest that all the requirements outlined
above have been satisfied. Upon certification of the case, a
civil action may be filed in the U.S. district court. Although
this interstate enforcement procedure has been available since
enactment of the child support program in 1975, there has only
been one reported case of its use by a State (the initiating
State was California; the responding State was Texas).
Interstate income withholding
Interstate income withholding is a process by which the
State of the custodial parent seeks the help of the State in
which the noncustodial parent's income is earned to enforce a
support order using the income withholding mechanism. Pursuant
to the child support amendments of 1984, income withholding was
authorized for all valid instate or out-of-State orders issued
or modified after October 1, 1985, and for all orders in child
support enforcement (i.e., IV-D) cases regardless of the date
the order was issued. Although Federal law requires a State to
enforce another State's valid orders through interstate
withholding, there is no Federal mandate that interstate income
withholding procedures be uniform. Approaches vary from the
Model Interstate Income Withholding Act to URESA registration.
The preferred way to handle an interstate income withholding
request is to use the interstate action transmittal form from
one child support agency to another. In child support
enforcement cases, Federal regulations required that by August
22, 1988, all interstate income withholding requests be sent to
the enforcing State's central registry for referral to the
appropriate State or local official. The actual wage
withholding procedure used by the State in which the
noncustodial parent lives is the same as that used in
intrastate cases. In a 1992 report (U.S. General Accounting
Office, 1992a, p. 4 & pp. 21-28), GAO indicated that the main
reason for the failure of interstate income withholding was the
lack of uniformity in its implementation.
Full faith and credit
One of the most significant barriers to improved interstate
collections is that, because a child support order is not
considered a final judgment, the full faith and credit clause
of the U.S. Constitution does not preclude modification. Thus,
the order is subject to modification upon a showing of changed
circumstances by the issuing court or by another court with
jurisdiction. Congress could prohibit inter- or intrastate
modifications of child support orders, but many students of
child support hold that a complete ban on modifications would
be unrealistic and unfair. A more likely approach would be one
under which States were required to give full faith and credit
to each other's child support orders under most circumstances.
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1986, Public Law
99-509, took a step in this direction by requiring States to
treat past due support obligations as final judgments entitled
to full faith and credit in every State. Thus, a person who has
a support order in one State does not have to obtain a second
order in another State to obtain the money due should the
debtor parent move from the issuing court's jurisdiction. The
second State can modify the order prospectively if it finds
that circumstances exist to justify a change, but the second
State may not retroactively modify a child support order.
Public Law 103-383, the Full Faith and Credit for Child
Support Orders Act (signed into law Oct. 20, 1994), restricts a
State court's ability to modify a child support order issued by
another State unless the child and the custodial parent have
moved to the State where the modification is sought or have
agreed to the modification.
Commission on interstate child support enforcement
The Family Support Act of 1988, Public Law 100-485,
included several provisions affecting interstate child support
enforcement. The law required States to establish automated
statewide, comprehensive case tracking and monitoring systems,
which would improve each State's ability to manage interstate
cases. But most importantly, the law required the establishment
of a 15-member commission to study interstate child support
establishment and enforcement.
The U.S. Commission on Interstate Child Support's report to
Congress, issued in 1992, includes 120 recommendations for
improving the Child Support Enforcement Program. The report
highlights several recommendations deemed essential to
improving interstate enforcement:
1. Establishment of an integrated, automated network linking
all States to provide quick access to locate and income
information (which would include new hire information
based on W-4 forms);
2. Establishment of income withholding across State lines from
the person seeking enforcement directly to the income
source in the other State;
3. Enactment by States of the Uniform Interstate Family
Support Act (UIFSA; which would replace URESA);
4. State use of early, voluntary parentage determination for
children born outside marriage and uniform evidentiary
rules for contested paternity cases;
5. Universal access to health care insurance for children of
separated parents;
6. More emphasis on staff training and increased resources to
ensure that all cases are processed on a more timely
basis; and
7. Revision of child support funding to ensure that action is
taken on cases most in need of attention (U.S.
Commission on Interstate Child Support, 1992, p. xiii).
Federal criminal penalties
The Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 imposed a Federal
criminal penalty for the willful failure to pay a past due
child support obligation to a child who resides in another
State and that has remained unpaid for longer than a year or is
greater than $5,000. For the first conviction, the penalty is a
fine of up to $5,000, imprisonment for not more than 6 months,
or both; for a second conviction, the penalty is a fine of not
more than $250,000, imprisonment for up to 2 years, or both.
Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA)
One of the Commission on Interstate Child Support
Enforcement's major recommendations to Congress was to replace
URESA with UIFSA, the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, a
model State law for handling interstate child support cases
drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform
State Laws and approved by the Commissioners in August 1992.
UIFSA is designed to deal with desertion and nonsupport by
instituting uniform laws in all 50 States and the District of
Columbia. The core of UIFSA is limiting control of a child
support case to a single State, thereby ensuring that only one
child support order from one court or child support agency will
be in effect at any give time. It follows that the controlling
State will be able to effectively pursue interstate cases,
primarily through the use of long arm statutes, because its
jurisdiction is undisputed. Many, perhaps most, child support
officials believe UIFSA will help eliminate jurisdictional
disputes between States and lead to substantial increases in
interstate collections.
UIFSA allows: (1) direct income withholding by the
controlling State without second State involvement; (2)
administrative enforcement without registration; and (3)
registered enforcement based on the substantive laws of the
controlling State and the procedural laws of the registering
State. The order cannot be adjusted if only enforcement is
requested, and enforcement may begin upon registration (before
notice and hearing) if the receiving State's due process rules
allow. Under UIFSA, the controlling State may adjust the
support order under its own standards. In addition, UIFSA
includes some uniform evidentiary rules to make interstate case
handling easier, such as using telephonic hearings, easing
admissibility of evidence requirements, and admitting petitions
into evidence without the need for live or corroborative
testimony to make a prima facie case. As of February 1996, 26
States and the District of Columbia had adopted UIFSA (Office
of Child Support, 1992b, pp. 4-5).
Other procedures that aid interstate enforcement
In 1948, the National Conference of Commissioners on
Uniform State Laws and the American Bar Association approved
the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act (UEFJA), which
simplifies the collection of child support arrearages in
interstate cases. Revised in 1964 and adopted in only 30
States, UEFJA provides that upon the filing of an authenticated
foreign (i.e., out-of-State) judgment and notice to the
obligor, the judgment is to be treated in the same manner as a
local one. A judgment is the official decision or finding of a
court on the respective rights of the involved parties. UEFJA
applies only to final judgments. As a general rule, child
support arrearages that have been reduced to judgment are
considered final judgments and thus can be filed under UEFJA.
An advantage of UEFJA is that it does not require reciprocity
(i.e., it need only be in effect in the initiating State). A
disadvantage is that UEFJA is limited to collection of
arrearages; it cannot be used to establish an initial order or
to enforce current orders.
Summary information on collection methods
Table 9-2 shows that 66 percent of the roughly $10.8
billion in child support payments collected in fiscal year 1995
was obtained through four enforcement techniques: wage
withholding; Federal income tax refund offset; State income tax
refund offset; and unemployment compensation intercept. The
remaining 34 percent is listed as collected by ``other'' means.
Federal child support officials informed us that most of these
``other'' collections came from noncustodial parents who comply
with their support orders by sending their payments to the CSE
agency. The ``other'' category also includes collections from
noncustodial parents who voluntarily sent money for their
children even though a support order had never been established
(about 1 percent of all collections), and enforcement
techniques such as liens against property, the posting of bonds
or securities, and use of the full IRS collection procedure.
Table 9-2 indicates that by fiscal year 1991 wage withholding
had become the primary enforcement method, producing nearly 47
percent of all child support collections. By 1995, the
percentage had increased even further, reaching 57 percent.
BANKRUPTCY AND CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
Giving debtors a fresh start is the goal of this country's
bankruptcy system. Depending on the type of bankruptcy, a
debtor may be able to discharge a debt completely, pay a
percentage of the debt, or pay the full amount of the debt over
a longer period of time. However, several debts may not be
discharged, including debts for child support and alimony (U.S.
Commission on Interstate Child Support, 1992, p. 209).
The 1975 child support legislation included a provision
stating that an assigned child support obligation was not
dischargeable in bankruptcy. In 1978 this provision was
incorporated into the 1978 uniform law on bankruptcy. The
bankruptcy law also listed exceptions to discharge including
alimony and maintenance or support due a spouse, former spouse,
or child. In 1981, a provision stating that a child support
obligation assigned to the State as a condition of eligibility
for AFDC is not dischargeable in bankruptcy was reinstated. In
1984, the provision was expanded so that child support
obligations assigned to the State as part of the child support
program may not be discharged in bankruptcy, regardless of
whether the payments are to be made on behalf of an AFDC or a
non-AFDC family and regardless of whether the debtor was
married to the child's other parent.
Some noncustodial parents seek relief from their financial
obligations in the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts. Although child
support payments may not be discharged via a filing of
bankruptcy, the filing may cause long delays in securing child
support payments. Pursuant to Public Law 103-394, enacted in
1994, a filing of bankruptcy will not stay a paternity, child
support, or alimony proceeding. In addition, child support and
alimony payments will be priority claims and custodial parents
will be able to appear in bankruptcy court to protect their
interests without having to pay a fee or meet any local rules
for attorney appearances.
AUTOMATED SYSTEMS
In 1980, Congress authorized 90 percent Federal matching
funds on an open-ended basis for States to design and implement
automated data systems. Funds go to States that establish an
automated data processing and information retrieval system
designed to assist in administration of the State child support
plan, and to control, account for, and monitor all factors in
the enforcement, collection, and paternity determination
processes. Funds may be used to plan, design, develop, and
install or enhance the system. The Secretary of HHS must
approve the State system as meeting specified conditions before
matching is available.
In 1984, Congress made the 90-percent rate available to pay
for the acquisition of computer hardware and necessary
software. The 1984 legislation also specified that if a State
met the Federal requirement for 90 percent matching, it could
use its funds to pay for the development and improvement of
income withholding and other procedures required by the 1984
law. In May 1986, OCSE established a transfer policy requiring
States seeking the 90 percent Federal matching rate to transfer
existing automated systems from other States rather than to
develop new ones, unless there were a compelling reason not to
use the systems developed by other States.
In 1988, Congress required States without comprehensive
statewide automated systems to submit an advance planning
document to the OCSE by October 1, 1991, for the development of
such a system. Congress required that all States have a fully
operating system by October 1, 1995, at which time the 90
percent matching rate was to end. The 1988 law allowed many
requirements for automated systems to be waived under certain
circumstances. For instance, the HHS Secretary could waive a
requirement if a State demonstrated that it had an alternative
system enabling it to substantially comply with program
requirements or a State provided assurance that additional
steps would be taken to improve its program.
As of May 1, 1996, OCSE had approved the automated data
systems of only five States--Delaware, Georgia, Montana,
Virginia, and Washington. Most observers agree that States were
delayed primarily by the lateness of Federal regulations
specifying the requirements for the data systems and by the
complexity of getting their final systems into operation. Thus,
on October 12, 1995, Congress enacted Public Law 104-35 which
extended for 2 years, from October 1, 1995 to October 1, 1997,
the deadline by which States are required to have statewide
automated systems for their child support programs. On October
1, 1995, however, the 90 percent matching rate ended; State
spending on data systems is now matched at the basic
administrative rate of 66 percent.
The purpose of requiring States to operate statewide
automated and computerized systems is to ensure that child
support functions are carried out effectively and efficiently.
These requirements include case initiation, case management,
financial management, enforcement, security, privacy, and
reporting. Implementing these requirements can facilitate
locating noncustodial parents and monitoring child support
cases. For example, by linking automated child support systems
to other State databases, information can be obtained quickly
and cheaply about a noncustodial parent's current address,
assets, and employment status. Systems can also be connected to
the court system to access information on child support orders
(U.S. General Accounting Office, 1992b).
AUDITS AND FINANCIAL PENALTIES
Audits are required at least every 3 years to determine
whether the standards and requirements prescribed by law and
regulations have been met by the child support program of every
State. If a State fails the audit, Federal AFDC matching funds
must be reduced by an amount equal to at least 1 but not more
than 2 percent for the first failure to comply, at least 2 but
not more than 3 percent for the second failure, and at least 3
but not more than 5 percent for the third and subsequent
failures. According to OCSE, two States that had followup
reports issued in fiscal year 1993 and failed to achieve
substantial compliance had a 1 percent penalty imposed during
fiscal year 1994.
If a penalty is imposed after a followup review, a State
may appeal the audit penalty to the HHS Departmental Appeals
Board. Payment of the penalty is delayed while the appeal is
pending. The appeals board reviews the written records which
may be supplemented by informal conferences and evidentiary
hearings.
The penalty may be suspended for up to 1 year to allow a
State time to implement corrective actions to remedy the
program deficiency. At the end of the corrective action period,
a followup audit is conducted in the areas of deficiency. If
the followup audit shows that the deficiency has been
corrected, the penalty is rescinded. However, if the State
remains out of compliance with Federal requirements, a
graduated penalty, as provided by law, is assessed against the
State. The actual amount of the penalty--between 1 and 5
percent of the State's AFDC matching funds (see above)--depends
on the severity and the duration of the deficiency. If a State
is under penalty, a comprehensive audit is conducted annually
until the cited deficiencies are corrected (Office of Child
Support, 1994, pp. 14-16). Penalty disallowance collections
from five States (Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, Wyoming, and
the District of Columbia) totaled $1.253 million in fiscal year
1994.
ASSIGNMENT AND DISTRIBUTION OF CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTIONS
Two parties have claims on child support collections made
by the State. The children and custodial parent on behalf of
whom the payments are made, of course, have a claim on payments
by the noncustodial parent. However, in the case of families
that have received public aid, taxpayers who paid to support
the destitute family by providing a host of welfare benefits
also have a legitimate claim on the money.
Thus, over the years a series of somewhat complex rules
have developed to determine who actually gets the money. It is
helpful to think of these rules in two categories. First, there
are rules in both Federal and State law that stipulate who has
a legal claim on the payments owed by the noncustodial parent.
These are called assignment rules. Second, there are rules that
determine the order in which child support collections are paid
in accord with the assignment rules. These are called
distribution rules.
As long as families remain on welfare, the distribution of
child support is straightforward. When families apply for AFDC,
the custodial parent must assign to the State the right to
collect any child support obligations that accumulated before
the family joined welfare as well as support that comes due
while the family is receiving welfare benefits. As long as the
family remains on welfare, then, all but the first $50 (see
below and table 9-10 for information about the $50 passthrough)
is kept by the State and split with the Federal Government.
Consider a simple example. Suppose that when a given mother
signed up for welfare, the child support agency was successful
in locating the father, establishing a support order for $200
per month, and collecting the payments. Each month, the State
would ``pass through'' $50 to the mother and children and
retain $150, which in turn would be split with the Federal
Government. In addition, the amount of welfare reimbursement
owed to the State by the noncustodial parent would be reduced
by $200 each month. If the AFDC benefit were $300 per month,
the amount owed to the State by the noncustodial parent would
increase by only $100 each month rather than the full $300.
Once families leave welfare, the amount of support assigned
to the State is the amount that equals total AFDC payments to
the family minus any child support paid by the noncustodial
parent while the family was on welfare. At the moment the
family leaves welfare, then, the noncustodial parent usually
owes child support to both the government and the family. The
amount owed the family is the amount of payments that
accumulated before the family went on welfare plus any amount
that accumulates because of nonpayment after the family leaves
welfare.
The real issue, of course, is the order in which these
debts will be paid once the family leaves AFDC. The first rule
is straightforward: Payments against current support always go
to the family. In the case above, no matter how long the mother
was on welfare, the first $200 of monthly payments is assigned
to and distributed to the mother once the family leaves
welfare. If the father never pays against arrearages, the
government never gets repaid for the AFDC benefits it provided
and the mother never gets repaid for arrearages that accrued
before or after the family was on welfare.
Now assume that the father begins to make payments in
excess of the current support amount of $200. The issue arises
of whether the State can keep the amount above the current
support order as repayment for AFDC benefits or whether the
State must give the arrearage payments to the family. Here we
see that distribution law trumps assignment law under some
circumstances; namely, whenever two or more parties have been
assigned child support that is past due. Both parties have
legal claims; the issue is which one is paid first.
Not surprisingly, Federal law allows States to make their
own distribution rules to determine who gets arrearage
collections. If the State so chooses, once current support has
been paid to the family, it can keep the entire arrearage (part
of which must be paid to the Federal Government) to pay for
AFDC benefits previously paid to the family. Once the State and
Federal Governments have been repaid the entire amount of AFDC
benefits provided to the family, the State must pay arrearages
to the family.
On the other hand, the State may allow the family to keep
the arrearage payments. This decision may not be as costly to
the State as at first appears. The extra money could be enough
of a boost to the mother's financial position that she would be
able to continue avoiding welfare, in which case the State
would save the money that would otherwise have been paid as
AFDC benefits--and perhaps as Medicaid and other welfare
benefits as well.
At the moment, the Federal policy of allowing States to
decide who gets arrearage payments once the family leaves
welfare is under intense criticism. With the increased emphasis
on helping mothers leave welfare and achieve self support, the
additional money mothers could receive from past due child
support has taken on additional meaning.
FUNDING OF STATE PROGRAMS
The child support program conducted by States is financed
by three major streams of money. The first and largest is the
Federal Government's commitment to reimburse States for 66
percent of all allowable expenditures on child support
activities. Allowable expenditures include outlays for locating
parents, establishing paternity (with an exception noted
below), establishing orders, and collecting payments.
There are two mechanisms through which Federal financial
control of State expenditures is exercised. First, States must
submit plans to the Secretary of HHS outlining the specific
child support activities they intent to pursue. The State plan
provides the Secretary with the opportunity to review and
approve or disapprove child support activities that will
receive the 66 percent Federal reimbursement. Second, as
discussed previously, HHS conducts a financial audit of State
expenditures.
In addition to the general matching rate of 66 percent, the
Federal Government provides 90 percent matching for two
especially important child support activities. First, until
October 1, 1995, the Federal Government paid 90 percent of
approved State expenditures on developing and improving
management information systems. Congress decided to pay this
enhanced match rate because data management, the construction
of large data bases containing information on location, income,
and assets of child support obligors, and computer access to
such large data bases were seen as the keys to a cost effective
child support system. In spending the additional Federal
dollars on these data systems, Congress hoped to provide an
incentive for States to adopt and aggressively employ efficient
data management technology.
Congress also provides 90 percent funding for laboratory
costs in blood testing. As in the case of data management
systems, Congress justified enhanced funding of blood tests
because paternity establishment is an activity vital to
successful child support enforcement. Historically,
establishing paternity in cases of births outside marriage has
proven to be surprisingly difficult. Especially since the
1960s, more and more children have been born outside marriage;
today nearly a third of all children are born to unwed mothers,
and nearly 50 percent of these babies wind up on welfare. Thus,
establishing paternity has become more and more important
because a growing fraction of the AFDC caseload is children
whose paternity has not been established. Congress hopes to
stimulate the use of blood tests as a way of improving State
performance in establishing paternity, especially given that
recent experience in the States shows that many men voluntarily
acknowledge paternity once blood tests reveal a high
probability of their paternity.
In addition to the Federal administrative matching
payments, the second stream of financing for State programs is
child support collections. As we have seen, when mothers apply
for AFDC, they assign the child's claim rights against the
father to the State. As long as the family receives AFDC
payments, the State can retain all but $50 of child support
payments up to the cumulative amount of the welfare payments.
AFDC law requires that the first $50 of collections be given to
the custodial parent and that this $50 be disregarded in
calculating AFDC eligibility and benefit level. Congress
enacted this $50 passthrough primarily to provide the mother
with an incentive to cooperate with the child support program.
As explained in detail in the section on ``Distribution of
Child Support Payments,'' States retain the right to pursue
repayment for AFDC benefits from the father even after the
family leaves welfare.
Recovered payments are split between the State and the
Federal Government in accord with the percentage of Federal
reimbursement of AFDC payments. Recall that in the AFDC
Program, States set the benefit levels and the Federal
Government then reimburses States a percentage that varies
inversely with State per capita income--poor States have a high
Federal reimbursement percentage, wealthy States have a lower
Federal reimbursement percentage. Mississippi, for example, one
of the poorest States, receives a reimbursement of about 80
percent for its AFDC expenditures. By contrast, States like
California and New York that have high per capita income
receive the minimum Federal reimbursement of 50 percent.
Since Federal dollars are used to finance a portion of the
State AFDC payment, States are required to split child support
collections from AFDC cases with the Federal Government. The
rate at which States reimburse the Federal Government is the
Federal matching rate in the AFDC Program. Thus, Mississippi
must send 80 percent of child support collections made on
behalf of AFDC families to the Federal Government because 80
percent of its AFDC benefit payments are reimbursed by Federal
dollars. New York and California send only 50 percent of AFDC
collections back to Washington.
The third stream of child support financing is Federal
incentive payments. The current incentive system is designed to
encourage States to collect child support from both AFDC and
non-AFDC cases. Under the incentive formula, each State
receives a payment equal to at least 6 percent of both AFDC
collections and of non-AFDC collections. States that perform
efficiently as indicated by the ratio of collections to
administrative expenditures can receive incentive payments of
up to 10 percent of collections in both the AFDC and non-AFDC
Programs. The specific incentive percentage between 6 and 10
for which a State qualifies is based on the collections-to-
expenditures ratios (see table 9-3).
TABLE 9-3.--INCENTIVE PAYMENT STRUCTURE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Incentive
payment
Collection-to-cost ratio received
(percent)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less than 1.4 to 1...................................... 6.0
At least 1.4 to 1....................................... 6.5
At least 1.6 to 1....................................... 7.0
At least 1.8 to 1....................................... 7.5
At least 2.0 to 1....................................... 8.0
At least 2.2 to 1....................................... 8.5
At least 2.4 to 1....................................... 9.0
At least 2.6 to 1....................................... 9.5
At least 2.8 to 1....................................... 10.0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services.
Incentive payments for non-AFDC collections have been
controversial since the inception of the child support program,
especially given the guarantee of an incentive payment equal to
6 percent of collections (table 9-3). Until fiscal year 1985,
non-AFDC collections were not eligible for incentive payments
at all. Congress adopted this policy because AFDC collections
are retained and split between State and Federal Governments
while all non-AFDC collections are paid to custodial parents.
In 1984 (effective in fiscal year 1985 and years
thereafter), Congress extended incentive payments to non-AFDC
collections. To limit Federal costs and to retain a substantial
incentive for AFDC collections, non-AFDC incentive payments
were capped as a percentage of AFDC incentive payments. The
1984 law (Public Law 98-378) stipulated that non-AFDC incentive
payments were not to exceed AFDC incentive payments in fiscal
years 1986 and 1987, were not to exceed 105 percent of AFDC
incentive payments in 1988, and were not to exceed 110 percent
in 1989. Since 1990, the 1984 law has allowed States to receive
incentive payments in the non-AFDC Program of up to 115 percent
of those in the AFDC Program.
Table 9-4 summarizes both child support income and
expenditures for every State. The first three columns show
State income from each of three funding streams just described;
the fourth column shows State spending on child support. As
demonstrated in the fifth column, the sum of the three streams
of income exceeds expenditures in all but 13 States. In other
words, most States make a profit on their child support
program. States are free to spend this profit in any manner the
State sees fit.
TABLE 9-4.--FINANCING OF THE FEDERAL/STATE CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM, FISCAL YEAR 1994
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State income
---------------------------------------- State Collections-
State Federal State share Federal administrative State net to-costs
administrative of incentive expenditures ratio
payments collections payments (costs)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama........................ 29,697 4,692 3,012 44,191 (6,790) 2.89
Alaska......................... 7,866 5,954 2,504 11,842 4,482 3.87
Arizona........................ 30,017 5,386 3,348 43,514 (4,763) 1.78
Arkansas....................... 14,788 3,017 2,516 21,004 (683) 2.63
California..................... 225,619 165,888 52,631 335,444 108,694 2.42
Colorado....................... 21,940 11,715 4,627 31,649 6,633 2.54
Connecticut.................... 22,500 18,262 5,426 33,743 12,445 2.92
Delaware....................... 8,087 3,129 1,070 12,087 199 2.45
District of Columbia........... 9,124 2,314 1,063 12,795 (294) 1.88
Florida........................ 63,043 32,296 13,712 94,809 14,242 3.54
Georgia........................ 37,260 13,351 14,170 54,793 9,988 4.19
Guam........................... 2,159 291 266 3,224 (508) 2.20
Hawaii......................... 11,242 4,330 1,436 15,445 1,563 2.92
Idaho.......................... 9,512 2,528 1,790 13,031 799 2.83
Illinois....................... 59,418 23,217 8,939 87,862 3,712 2.30
Indiana........................ 18,241 15,601 10,733 25,847 18,728 5.87
Iowa........................... 17,035 12,879 7,095 24,309 12,700 5.05
Kansas......................... 20,600 8,752 3,591 29,978 2,965 2.89
Kentucky....................... 23,636 8,626 5,285 34,225 3,322 3.55
Louisiana...................... 23,732 5,319 3,755 34,479 (1,673) 3.42
Maine.......................... 8,156 6,476 4,614 12,157 7,089 4.21
Maryland....................... 35,310 18,818 7,106 51,972 9,262 4.82
Massachusetts.................. 51,335 32,492 10,656 74,551 19,932 2.74
Michigan....................... 79,055 61,557 24,826 115,008 50,430 7.81
Minnesota...................... 43,508 23,716 8,512 63,382 12,354 3.89
Mississippi.................... 21,528 3,565 3,262 31,042 (2,687) 2.01
Missouri....................... 38,045 17,891 8,034 54,664 9,306 3.92
Montana........................ 4,926 1,479 977 7,564 (182) 2.82
Nebraska....................... 12,515 3,064 1,453 17,953 (921) 4.52
Nevada......................... 10,381 3,139 1,902 14,973 449 2.92
New Hampshire.................. 7,588 3,822 1,268 11,357 1,321 3.22
New Jersey..................... 69,507 36,937 12,014 104,757 13,701 4.20
New Mexico..................... 11,493 3,098 1,967 15,569 989 1.93
New York....................... 112,436 76,867 24,743 168,138 45,908 3.39
North Carolina................. 48,294 19,861 10,735 70,425 8,465 3.22
North Dakota................... 3,652 1,509 1,021 5,294 888 4.13
Ohio........................... 92,904 36,273 15,440 138,252 6,365 5.71
Oklahoma....................... 12,738 5,394 3,117 18,628 2,621 3.09
Oregon......................... 18,331 9,565 5,520 26,527 6,889 5.36
Pennsylvania................... 68,544 43,899 17,078 100,426 29,095 8.58
Puerto Rico.................... 10,986 180 599 14,779 (3,014) 6.97
Rhode Island................... 6,448 6,247 2,360 9,300 5,755 3.22
South Carolina................. 18,990 5,897 3,833 27,359 1,361 3.31
South Dakota................... 3,019 1,472 1,099 4,387 1,203 4.87
Tennessee...................... 22,072 9,130 4,967 30,843 5,326 4.58
Texas.......................... 98,654 22,951 11,826 145,785 (12,354) 2.52
Utah........................... 15,153 4,635 2,959 22,406 341 2.73
Vermont........................ 4,627 2,431 1,029 6,960 1,127 2.58
Virgin Islands................. 1,058 71 68 1,477 (280) 3.77
Virginia....................... 33,089 14,674 5,308 48,540 4,531 3.77
Washington..................... 66,502 41,521 15,132 99,160 23,995 3.43
West Virginia.................. 15,728 2,368 1,663 21,970 (2,211) 2.48
Wisconsin...................... 33,121 22,863 12,484 49,171 19,297 7.74
Wyoming........................ 5,449 1,279 777 7,327 178 2.21
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total...................... 1,740,658 892,688 375,318 2,556,374 452,290 4.02
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--The ``State net'' column in this table is not the same as the comparable figure presented in annual
reports of the Office of Child Support Enforcement (see for example, 1996, p. 78) because estimated Federal
incentive payments are used in the annual reports while final Federal incentive payments were used in this
table.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The method of financing child support enforcement has
received considerable attention in recent years. Perhaps the
most important issue is that States have little incentive to
control their administrative spending. The last column of table
9-4 presents a measure of State program efficiency obtained by
dividing total collections by total administrative expenses.
The table shows the dramatic differences among States in how
much child support is collected for each dollar of
administrative expenditure--a crude measure of efficiency--
ranging from only $1.78 in Arizona to $8.58 in Pennsylvania.
And yet, most States, including those that spend up to three or
four times as much per dollar of collections as more efficient
States, still make a profit on the program.
Table 9-5 shows one consequence of child support's
financing system. The first two columns of the table show the
net impact of program financing on the Federal and State
governments respectively. The Federal Government has lost money
on child support every year since 1979, and the losses have
grown every year since 1984. Overall, losses have jumped
sharply from $43 million in 1979 to $1.257 billion in 1995.
State governments by contrast have made a profit on the
program every year. In 1979, the first year for which data are
available, States cleared $244 million on child support. By
1995, States cleared $431 million. As Federal losses have
mounted, State profits have increased.
TABLE 9-5.--FEDERAL AND STATE SHARE OF CHILD SUPPORT ``SAVINGS,'' FISCAL
YEARS 1979-95
[In millions]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal State
share of share of
Fiscal year child child Net public
support support savings \1\
savings \1\ savings
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1979............................... -$43 $244 $201
1980............................... -103 230 127
1981............................... -128 261 133
1982............................... -148 307 159
1983............................... -138 312 174
1984............................... -105 366 260
1985............................... -231 317 86
1986............................... -264 274 9
1987............................... -337 342 5
1988............................... -355 381 26
1989............................... -480 403 -77
1990............................... -528 338 -190
1991............................... -586 385 -201
1992............................... -605 434 -170
1993............................... -740 462 -278
1994............................... -978 482 -496
1995............................... -1,257 431 -826
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Negative ``savings'' are costs.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, Annual Reports to Congress,
1994 and various years.
The last column in table 9-5 portrays an unfortunate
historical progression in child support financing. Beginning in
the very first year of the child support program and for a
decade thereafter, the net impact of Federal losses and State
profits was a net savings for taxpayers. Thus, in 1979,
although the Federal Government lost money, State savings more
than made up for the loses. As a result, from a public finance
perspective, taxpayers were ahead by $201 million (see last
column). Total Federal and State child support expenditures, in
other words, were more than offset by collections from parents
whose children had been supported by AFDC payments. These AFDC
collections were retained and used to reimburse the Federal and
State governments for previous AFDC expenditures. The savings
produced in this manner exceeded overall expenditures.
Unfortunately, net public savings declined over the years.
A major explanation for the negative public savings was that
beginning in 1985, as explained above, new Federal legislation
required States to give the first $50 per month of collections
in AFDC cases to the custodial parent. This $50 passthrough had
an immediate impact; in its first year, combined Federal-State
savings fell to $86 million from $260 million the previous
year. By 1989 the overall ``savings'' in the combined program
went negative. For the first time that year, Federal losses
exceeded State gains--by $77 million. The net losses have
increased almost every year, reaching $826 million in 1995 (see
table 9-5).
Reflecting on these numbers, two perspectives should be
considered. One perspective, the finance perspective, attends
simply to the measurable costs and benefits of the child
support program. But a second, broader perspective includes
more diffuse social benefits of child support that are
difficult to measure.
From the public finance perspective, perhaps the most
important question about child support financing is why the
Federal Government, which loses money on the program every
year, should provide such a high reimbursement level for State
expenditures when nearly all States make a profit on their
child support program. In the past, this issue has prompted
Congress to reduce the basic administrative reimbursement rate
on several occasions. As a result, the rate has declined from
its original level of 75 percent to 66 percent. But some
Members of Congresss have suggested that, because most States
are still making a profit while the Federal Government is
losing money, Congress should reduce the Federal administrative
reimbursement rate below 66 percent. Defenders of child support
financing respond by pointing out that allowing States to
profit from the program makes it very popular with State
policymakers who control funding of the State share of
expenditures. Without financing arrangements favorable to State
interests, according to this view, the child support program
would not have posted the impressive gains that have
characterized the program since its inception in 1975.
The 66 percent Federal reimbursement of State
administrative expenditures raises a second issue of program
financing: Why is such a large percentage of State expenditures
financed without regard to performance? Even if States spend a
great deal of money on activities of dubious value in
collecting child support, they can nonetheless count on 66
percent reimbursement from the Federal Government. The flat 66
percent reimbursement rate may provide States with an incentive
to spend money inefficiently. A potential solution would be for
the Federal Government to provide States with less money based
on gross spending and relatively more money based on
performance.
However, there is widespread criticism of the performance
measures now used to determine the stream of Federal incentive
payments. Critics of child support financing question whether
incentives should be provided for non-AFDC collections. With
regard to program financing, there is a striking difference
between the AFDC and non-AFDC Programs; namely, government
retains part of AFDC collections but non-AFDC collections are
given entirely to the family. When Congress enacted the child
support program in 1975, the floor debate shows that members of
the House and Senate supported the program primarily because
retaining AFDC collections would help offset AFDC expenditures.
But program trends since 1975 show that the non-AFDC
Program is actually much bigger than the AFDC Program and grows
faster each year than the AFDC Program. As shown in table 9-1
above, AFDC collections have grown from about $0.5 billion in
1978 to $2.7 billion in 1995, for a constant dollar growth by a
factor of about five. But non-AFDC collections have grown from
about $0.6 billion to more than $8 billion over the same
period, for a growth factor of nearly 14.
The point here is that although AFDC collections are
growing, non-AFDC collections are growing much faster. And
since the State and Federal Governments receive virtually no
direct reimbursement for non-AFDC expenditures, the child
support program loses more and more money every year. Why,
then, critics ask, should the Federal Government encourage
greater expenditures by providing incentives for non-AFDC
collections. Ignoring for the moment possible social benefits
from the non-AFDC Program and based entirely on a public
finance perspective, some critics argue that non-AFDC
incentives encourage inefficiency.
Another issue raised about the current incentive system is
that it does not necessarily base rewards on the best measure
of performance. Just as the basic 66 percent reimbursement rate
ignores efficiency by relying exclusively on expenditures, the
incentive system ignores efficiency by relying exclusively on
collections. A better measure of efficiency may be one that
combines expenditures and collections in a single measure. If
incentive payments were based on child support collections per
dollar of administrative expenditure, States would have
incentive to collect more money while holding down
expenditures. An incentive system based just on expenditures or
just on collections is at best half an incentive system.
A final issue of program financing is whether government
should pay such a high percentage of costs in the non-AFDC
Program. States must charge an application fee that can be no
more than $25 for the non-AFDC Program, but this amount doesn't
even pay the full cost of opening a case file. In 1995, more
than 2.4 million non-AFDC families received services resulting
in child support collections that averaged around $3,300 per
case. By collecting this money, government is providing a
useful service to millions of families, many of which are not
poor. Rather than have taxpayers pick up the cost of this
service, some critics argue that families receiving the
services should pay more of the costs. Federal law allows
States to charge additional fees, but few do so. States argue
that, because many of the non-AFDC families are poor or low-
income, charging them for child support services would decrease
their already tenuous financial stability. States also argue
that setting up an administrative system to establish and
collect the fees would cost more money than the fees actually
collected.
The account of child support from the finance perspective
given above relies on measurable spending and collections.
However, defenders of the current child support program argue
that it may produce social benefits that are not captured by
mere spending and collections data. These program defenders
claim that a strong child support program produces ``cost
avoidance'' by demonstrating to noncustodial parents who would
try to avoid child support that the system will eventually
catch up with them.
Although there is little evidence that would allow an
estimate of the cost avoidance effect, there is nonetheless
good reason to believe that at least some noncustodial parents
make child support payments in part because they fear detection
and prosecution. Even more to the point, a strong child support
program may change the way society thinks about child support.
As in the cases of civil rights and smoking, a persistent
effort over a period of years may convince millions of
Americans, both those who owe child support and those concerned
with the condition of single-parent families, that making
payments is a moral and civic duty. Those who avoid it would
then be subject to something even more potent than legal
prosecution--social ostracism.
To the extent that this reasoning is correct, the public
and policymakers may come to regard child support enforcement
as a long-term investment similar in many respects to
education, job training, and other policies that help families
support their children. In each of these cases, there is
expectation that society will be better off in the long run
because the government invests in helping individuals and
families. But the expectation that investments will lead to
immediate payoffs, or even that we can devise evaluation
methods that adequately capture the long-term payoffs, is much
less than the expectation of immediate and measurable payoffs
that characterizes the kind of public finance reasoning
outlined above. Of course, even if the public is willing to
continue paying for child support enforcement as a social
investment, Congress and child support administrators may
nonetheless find it desirable to intensify their efforts to
make the program as efficient as possible.
HOW EFFECTIVE IS CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT?
Since the inception of the Federal-State child support
program in 1975, there appears to have been growing public
awareness of the problem of nonpayment of child support and
increased willingness by taxpayers to spend money trying to
improve child support enforcement. As measured either by
expenditures or total collections, the Federal-State program
has grown about tenfold since 1978. To the extent that private
arrangements fail to ensure child support payments, our laws
and, increasingly, our practices bring child support cases into
the public domain. In view of these quite remarkable changes in
law and practice, it seems useful to provide a broad assessment
of the performance of the Nation's child support system in
general and of the IV-D program in particular.
Impact on Taxpayers
One useful measure of the Federal-State program is the
impact of collections on AFDC costs. As outlined above, States
retain and split with the Federal Government collections from
parents whose children are on AFDC. In addition, States can
often retain part of collections from parents whose children
were on AFDC in the past as repayment for taxpayer-provided
AFDC benefits.
As shown in table 9-1 above, AFDC collections have in fact
been rising every year since 1978, growing from less than $0.5
billion in that year to nearly $2.7 billion in 1995. Equally
important, the child support agencies collected a level of
payments on behalf of AFDC parents that equalled 13.6 percent
of all AFDC benefits in 1995. This figure, which has been
rising every year since 1980, seems especially impressive in
view of the fact that even if States could collect all of the
child support due, it would not be possible for some States to
recover 100 percent of AFDC benefits because AFDC benefit
payments usually exceed child support award levels.
Of course, it will be recalled that despite this impressive
rise in AFDC collections and cost offset, the overall impact of
the child support program on taxpayers is negative. As shown in
table 9-5, taxpayers lost over $0.8 billion on the program in
1995 and the loss has increased every year since 1988. Even so,
the rise of AFDC collections and cost offset ratios suggest
that with reform, the child support program could become more
efficient.
Impact on Poverty
Another good measure of child support performance is the
impact of collections on poverty. In 1991, 1.26 million (24
percent) of the 5.3 million women and men rearing children
alone who were supposed to receive child support payments had
incomes below the poverty level. If full payment had been made
to these custodial parents and if none of these families had
received welfare payments, only 140,000 of them would have
received enough income from child support payments to put them
above the poverty level (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995, pp. 7
& 26). Thus, the potential of child support to greatly reduce
poverty appears to be modest. Of course, if the child support
program could obtain orders and collect support for a
substantial fraction of the additional 5.3 million single
parents who don't even have an award, the antipoverty impact of
child support could be increased somewhat.
Despite the modest impact of child support on poverty, many
families on welfare have received enough of a financial boost
from child support payments that they were able to leave the
rolls. In 1994, 269,000 families with child support
collections, representing about 5 percent of the caseload,
became ineligible for AFDC. Similarly, about 3 percent of
families in the non-AFDC child support program were lifted out
of poverty by child support payments. This 3 percent figure is
more impressive than it appears at first because a substantial
fraction of the non-AFDC caseload had incomes above the poverty
level before receiving any child support payments. For a number
of these nonpoor families, incomes and standards of living were
improved by child support payments. Presumably, even poor
families that received child support but remained in poverty
had their standard of living improved by the child support
payments.
Impact on National Child Support Payments
Perhaps the most important measure of the Federal-State
program is its impact on overall national rates of paying child
support. Although the original intent of Congress in creating
the child support program was primarily to offset welfare
payments, both Congress and the American public have come to
see the program as a means of improving the Nation's system of
ensuring that parents who no longer live with their children
continue to provide for their financial support. An examination
of whether the IV-D program has had an impact on national child
support payments must begin with an assessment of the record of
noncustodial parents in paying child support.
The U.S. Census Bureau periodically collects national
survey information on child support. By interviewing a random
sample of single-parent families, the Census Bureau is able to
generate a host of numbers that can be used to assess the
performance of noncustodial parents in paying child support.
Table 9-6 provides detailed information for 1991, the most
recent year for which national data are available, on child
support payments by fathers to families headed by mothers.
Although the 1991 survey was the first to include custodial
fathers, the following discussion is focused solely on
custodial mothers. Several points bear emphasis, the most
important of which is that many female-headed families do not
receive child support. As shown in the top line of table 9-6,
of the 9.9 million female-headed families eligible for support,
only 56 percent even had a support award. Most observers would
say that a major failure of the Nation's child support system
is that entirely too many mothers do not have a child support
award.
Of the 4.9 million mothers who do have an award and who
were supposed to receive payments in 1991, about three-quarters
actually received at least one payment. However, as shown in
tables appended to this chapter, only about half of those due
money actually received everything that was due. So in addition
to its failure to get orders for a near majority of mothers,
critics assert that a second failure of the child support
system is that a large proportion of the money owed is not
paid.
Table 9-6, which also summarizes child support information
by ethnic group, by years of schooling, and by poverty level,
suggests a number of interesting and important features of
child support payments. White mothers have almost twice as high
a probability of having a support order as black and Hispanic
mothers (64 percent versus about 36 percent). Similarly,
mothers with a college degree have nearly a 75 percent chance
of having an order as compared with less than 35 percent for
high school dropouts and less than 60 percent for high school
graduates. As for payments, white mothers receive nearly $3,200
per year on average as compared with around only $2,100 for
black mothers and $2,200 for Hispanic mothers. College
graduates receive almost $4,900 per year in support as compared
with $1,700 and $2,600 for high school dropouts and graduates
respectively.
Clearly, mothers who are already financially worse off get
less from child support than mothers who are financially better
off. This generalization is made especially clear by two
further pieces of information depicted in the table. First,
never-married mothers, one of the poorest demographic groups in
the Nation, are only about one-third as likely to have an award
as divorced mothers (27 percent versus 73 percent); even never-
married mothers who actually receive support get less than half
as much as divorced mothers ($1,500 versus $3,600). Second, as
shown by the data at the bottom of the table, poor mothers are
less likely to have orders and receive less money than nonpoor
mothers. Table 9-7 shows similar data for the award of health
insurance. While demonstrating that only about 40 percent of
all mothers have health insurance included in their award, the
table also shows that the probability of health insurance
coverage is greatly reduced for never-married women, black and
Hispanic women, and women with less schooling.
TABLE 9-6.--CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS AWARDED AND RECEIVED BY WOMEN WITH CHILDREN PRESENT, BY SELECTED
CHARACTERISTICS, 1991
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supposed to receive child support in
1991
Percent ----------------------------------------
Total awarded Received support in 1991
Characteristics of women (thousands) child ---------------------------
support Total Mean
payments \1\ (thousands) Percent child Mean
support income
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALL WOMEN
Total................................. 9,918 55.9 4,883 76.3 $3,011 $18,144
Current marital status
Married \2\................................. 2,707 69.7 1,679 75.8 2,831 15,852
Divorced.................................... 3,052 72.8 2,027 78.3 3,623 23,121
Separated................................... 1,514 46.4 563 74.2 2,753 13,876
Widowed \3\................................. 80 48.8 30 (B) (B) (B)
Never married............................... 2,565 27.0 583 74.1 1,534 10,681
Race and Hispanic origin
White....................................... 6,966 64.0 3,976 77.8 3,193 18,949
Black....................................... 2,698 35.5 791 69.9 2,102 13,696
Hispanic origin \4\......................... 1,043 35.3 324 68.2 2,200 13,457
Years of school completed
Less than 12 years.......................... 2,272 33.5 648 69.8 1,686 8,062
High school: 4 years........................ 4,092 57.8 2,123 77.2 2,589 14,813
College:
Some college, no degree................. 1,931 64.4 1,117 73.1 3,479 20,235
Associate degree........................ 649 70.9 401 76.8 2,883 22,872
Bachelors degree or more................ 974 73.2 594 86.2 4,861 31,531
WOMEN BELOW POVERTY
Total................................. 3,513 38.9 1,200 70.4 1,922 5,687
Current marital status
Married \2\................................. 338 55.3 169 73.4 1,477 3,708
Divorced.................................... 877 55.4 448 69.4 2,474 6,889
Separated................................... 836 39.2 268 68.3 1,786 4,917
Widowed..................................... 14 (B) 4 (B) (B) (B)
Never married \3\........................... 1,449 24.8 311 72.3 1,515 5,725
Race
White....................................... 1,979 45.3 804 68.4 1,869 5,475
Black....................................... 1,433 30.2 361 74.2 2,083 6,246
Hispanic origin \4\......................... 563 24.9 126 66.7 2,580 5,022
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Award status as of spring 1991.
\2\ Remarried women whose previous marriage ended in divorce.
\3\ Widowed women whose previous marriage ended in divorce.
\4\ Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Note.--Women with own children under 21 years of age present from an absent father as of spring 1992. (B) = base
less than 75,000.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995.
TABLE 9-7.--CHILD SUPPORT AWARD STATUS AND INCLUSION OF HEALTH INSURANCE IN AWARD, BY SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS
OF WOMEN, 1991
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Awarded child support payments
-----------------------------------
Health insurance
included in child
Characteristic Total support award
(thousands) Total ----------------------
(thousands) Percent
Number of total
(thousands) awarded
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total.................................................... 9,918 5,542 2,271 41.0
Current marital status \1\
Remarried \2\.................................................. 2,707 1,888 752 39.8
Divorced....................................................... 3,052 2,221 1,044 47.0
Separated...................................................... 1,514 702 300 42.7
Never married.................................................. 2,565 693 167 24.1
Race and Hispanic origin
White.......................................................... 6,966 4,459 1,967 44.1
Black.......................................................... 2,698 958 249 26.0
Hispanic \3\................................................... 1,043 368 107 29.1
Age
15 to 17 years................................................. 88 11 ........... ........
18 to 29 years................................................. 3,022 1,269 405 31.9
30 to 39 years................................................. 4,379 2,691 1,205 44.8
40 years and over.............................................. 2,429 1,571 661 42.1
Years of school completed
Less than 12 years............................................. 2,272 761 222 29.2
High school: 4 years........................................... 4,092 2,365 973 41.1
College:
Some college, no degree.................................... 1,931 1,243 562 45.2
Associate degree........................................... 649 460 185 40.2
Bachelors degree or more................................... 974 713 329 46.1
Number of own children present from an absent father
One child...................................................... 5,090 2,884 1,078 37.4
Two children................................................... 3,085 1,892 868 45.9
Three children................................................. 1,166 587 234 39.9
Four children or more.......................................... 577 179 91 50.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Excludes a small number of current widowed women whose previous marriage ended in divorce.
\2\ Remarried women whose previous marriage ended in divorce.
\3\ Persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.
Note.--Women 15 years and older with own children under 21 years of age present from absent fathers as of spring
1992.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995.
Table 9-8, which summarizes several child support measures
for selected years between 1978 and 1991, complements and
extends the conclusions drawn from the 1991 data. \4\ More
specifically, the pattern of poor women being less likely to
have an order and receive support is nothing new; the years
since 1978 show no change in this pattern. In part because a
higher proportion of female-headed families are never-married,
the percentage of mothers with an award is lower now than in
1978, the percentage that actually receive any payment or full
payment is only slightly higher, and the aggregate payments
have grown less rapidly than the number of demographically
eligible mothers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ The Census Bureau changed its interview procedures before
obtaining the 1991 data. Specifically, Census asked whether adults had
any children under age 21 in their household who had a parent living
elsewhere. This question may have excluded some mothers who would have
answered the child support questions in previous surveys. In the
interviews for the years 1978 through 1989, all never-married mothers
were asked the child support questions. Because of this and other
differences in procedure, the Census Bureau recommends ``extreme
caution'' (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995, p. 40) in comparing data
from the 1992 interview with data from previous interviews. We present
the data from all the surveys and recommend that readers draw their own
conclusions.
TABLE 9-8.--CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS FOR ALL WOMEN, WOMEN ABOVE THE POVERTY LEVEL, AND WOMEN BELOW THE POVERTY
LEVEL, SELECTED YEARS 1978-91
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1978 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
All women:
Total (in thousands)................................ 7,094 8,387 8,690 8,808 9,415 9,955 9,918
Percent awarded \1\................................. 59.1 59.2 57.7 61.3 59.0 57.7 55.9
Percent actually received payment................... 34.6 34.6 34.9 36.8 39.0 37.4 38.1
Percent received full payment....................... 23.6 22.5 23.2 24.0 26.3 25.6 25.7
Women above poverty level:
Total (in thousands)................................ 5,121 5,821 5,792 6,011 6,224 6,749 6,405
Percent awarded \1\................................. 67.3 67.9 65.3 71.0 66.5 64.6 65.2
Percent actually received payment................... 41.1 41.4 42.6 44.1 44.8 43.1 45.9
Women below poverty level:
Total (in thousands)................................ 1,973 2,566 2,898 2,797 3,191 3,206 3,513
Percent awarded \1\................................. 38.1 39.7 42.5 40.4 44.3 43.3 38.9
Percent actually received payment................... 17.8 19.3 19.6 21.3 27.7 25.4 24.1
Aggregate payment (in billions of dollars): \2\
Child support due................................... 13.8 15.0 13.7 13.8 17.5 17.9 16.5
Child support received.............................. 8.9 9.2 9.7 9.1 12.0 12.3 11.2
Aggregate child support deficit..................... 4.9 5.8 4.1 4.7 5.5 5.6 5.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Award status as of spring 1979, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1990.
\2\ In 1991 dollars.
Note.--Payments for women with own children under age 21.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census (1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1995).
In summary, it appears that the performance of the Nation's
child support system is modest and that few if any of the
measures of national performance have improved in nearly two
decades. By contrast, as shown at the beginning of this chapter
(see table 9-1), the Federal-State child support program has
shown improved performance on a number of important measures
virtually every year since 1978. To promote comparison of
performance changes in the IV-D program with overall national
trends in child support performance, table 9-9 summarizes
several measures from both the IV-D program as revealed in
reports from the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
and the national system of child support as revealed in U.S.
Census Bureau Surveys. The data are surprising and, at first,
confusing. As shown in the top panel, the Federal-State program
is showing impressive improvement on every measure. Total
collections, parents located, paternities established, and
awards established are all up by over 200 percent since 1978.
By contrast, the measures of overall national trends show
little improvement. In fact, both the likelihood of having an
award and of being legally entitled to a payment have actually
declined slightly. The percentage of those with an award who
received at least one payment has been stagnant. The percentage
of mothers who received the full amount due has increased, but
only marginally, from 49 to 52 percent. On the other hand,
total collections increased by about 33 percent. This increase,
however, is dwarfed by the 245 percent increase in IV-D
collections. The increase must also be interpreted in view of
the fact that the number of single mothers demographically
eligible for child support increased by nearly 40 percent over
the same period.
Clearly, although the IV-D program has been growing
steadily since 1978, and although its performance on many
measures of child support has been improving, the improvement
appears to have had only modest impact on the national picture.
How can these two trends be reconciled?
The last panel of table 9-9 suggests an answer. This panel
shows collections by the Federal-State program as a percentage
of overall national child support payments. In 1978, less than
one-fourth of child support payments were collected through the
IV-D program. This percentage, however, has increased every
year since 1978. By 1991, more than 60 percent of all child
support payments were made through the IV-D program. The
implication of this trend is that the IV-D program may be
recruiting more and more cases from the private sector,
bringing them into the public sector, providing them with
subsidized services (or substituting Federal spending for State
spending), but not greatly improving child support collections.
Whatever the explanation, it seems that improved effectiveness
of the IV-D program has not led to significant improvement of
the Nation's child support performance.
The data in table 9-9 suffer from a potentially important
flaw. Given that Congress passed major child support
legislation in 1988, and that many authorities believe it took
3 or 4 years for the full impact of the legislation to become
apparent, the 1991 Census data may not capture the full effects
of the innovative reforms enacted in 1988.
Two additional statistics must be considered in any general
assessment of national child support payments. First, according
to Sorensen (1994), noncustodial parents owe over $30 billion
in overdue child support. Some perspective on the magnitude of
this figure is provided by recalling that the entire Federal
outlay on the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program
in 1995 was about $15 billion.
TABLE 9-9.--COMPARISON OF MEASURES OF IV-D EFFECTIVENESS WITH CENSUS SUPPORT DATA, 1978-91
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Percent
Measure -------------------------------------------------- change,
1978 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 \1\ 1978-91
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal-State IV-D Program
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total collections (1991 dollars, in billions) \2\.... 2.2 2.4 2.7 3.4 4.7 5.8 6.9 214
Parents located (thousands).......................... 454 696 831 878 1,145 1,624 2,577 468
Paternities established (thousands).................. 111 164 208 232 269 339 472 325
Awards established (thousands)....................... 315 414 496 669 812 936 \3\ 1,02
2 224
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Trends
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total collections (1991 dollars, in billions) \2\.... 9.8 9.0 9.7 9.1 12.0 12.3 11.2 26
Of demographically eligible:
Percent with awards.............................. 59 59 58 61 59 58 56 -5
Percent supposed to receive payment.............. 48 48 46 50 51 50 49 2
Percent who received some payment................ 35 35 35 37 39 37 38 9
Of mothers supposed to receive payment, percent who
received full amount................................ 49 47 50 48 51 51 52 6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV-D Collections as a Percentage of National Collections
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV-D collections as a percent of total collections... 24 27 29 37 39 47 62 158
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The Census Bureau collected data on custodial fathers for the first time for 1991; only the data on
custodial mothers is included here.
\2\ Constant 1991 dollars using the consumer price index.
\3\ Fiscal year 1990 data. The definition of support orders established changed in 1991.
Note.--Demographically eligible means women with own children under 21 years of age living with them from an
absent father.
Sources: Office of Child Support Enforcement, Annual Reports to Congress, 1994 and various years; U.S. Bureau of
the Census (1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1995).
But many critics of the child support system contend that
this figure on arrearages, which is based on child support
orders currently in place, is actually an underestimate of the
shortcomings of the Nation's child support system. These
critics hold that too few noncustodial parents have orders,
that the amount of orders is too low, and that not enough of
the amount owed is actually paid. Considerations of this sort
have led to several studies of what might be called ``child
support collections potential''--the amount that could be
collected by a perfectly efficient child support system.
The most recent of these studies, conducted by researchers
at the Urban Institute (Sorensen, 1995), produced the estimate
that $47 billion could be collected in child support each year.
The assumptions underlying this estimate are that all custodial
parents had an order, that payments averaged $5,400 per year,
and that the full amount of every order was actually paid. Of
course, no one expects any program to be perfectly efficient.
Even so, comparing the $47 billion that could be generated by a
perfect system with the actual payments of around $14 billion
in 1994 provides a useful index of how far we need to go as a
Nation if we are to provide custodial parents and children with
the measure of financial security that is the major goal of our
child support system.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
1950
The first Federal child support enforcement legislation was
Public Law 81-734, the Social Security Act amendments of 1950,
which added Section 402(a)(11) to the Social Security Act (42
USC 602(a)(11)). The legislation required State welfare
agencies to notify appropriate law enforcement officials upon
providing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to a
child who was abandoned or deserted by a parent.
Also that year, the National Conference of Commissioners on
Uniform State Laws and the American Bar Association approved
the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (subsequent
amendments to this Act were approved in 1952, 1958, and 1968).
1965
Public Law 89-97, the Social Security amendments of 1965,
allowed a State or local welfare agency to obtain from the
Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare the address and
place of employment of an absent parent who owed child support
under a court order for support.
1967
Public Law 90-248, the Social Security amendments of 1967,
allowed States to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) the address of nonresident parents who owed child support
under a court order for support. In addition, each State was
required to establish a single organizational unit to establish
paternity and collect child support for deserted children
receiving AFDC. States were also required to work cooperatively
with each other under child support reciprocity agreements and
with courts and law enforcement officials.
1975
Public Law 93-647, the Social Security amendments of 1974,
created Part D of Title IV of the Social Security Act (Sections
451, et seq.; 42 USC 651, et seq.). The key child support
enforcement provisions, which reflect 3 years of intense
Congressional attention, are as follows: The Secretary of the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the
Department of Health and Human Services or HHS) has primary
responsibility for the Program and is required to establish a
separate organizational unit to operate the program.
Operational responsibilities include: (1) establishing a parent
locator service; (2) establishing standards for State program
organization, staffing, and operation; (3) reviewing and
approving State plans for the program; (4) evaluating State
program operations by conducting audits of each State's
program; (5) certifying cases for referral to the Federal
courts to enforce support obligations; (6) certifying cases for
referral to the IRS for support collections; (7) providing
technical assistance to States and assisting them with
reporting procedures; (8) maintaining records of program
operations, expenditures, and collections; and (9) submitting
an annual report to the Congress.
Primary responsibility for operating the Child Support
Enforcement Program was placed on the States pursuant to the
State plan. The major requirements of a State plan are that:
(1) the State designate a single and separate organizational
unit to administer the program; (2) the State undertake to
establish paternity and secure support for individuals
receiving AFDC and others who apply directly for child support
enforcement services; (3) child support payments be made to the
State for distribution; (4) the State enter into cooperative
agreements with appropriate courts and law enforcement
officials; (5) the State establish a State parent locator
service that uses State and local parent location resources and
the Federal Parent Locator Service; (6) the State cooperate
with any other State in locating an absent parent, establishing
paternity, and securing support; and (7) the State maintain a
full record of collections and disbursements made under the
plan.
In addition, the 1975 legislation established procedures
for the distribution of child support collections received on
behalf of families on AFDC, created an incentive system to
encourage States to collect payments from parents of children
on AFDC, and subjected moneys due and payable to Federal
employees to garnishment for the collection of child support.
New eligibility requirements were added to the AFDC Program
requiring applicants for, or recipients of, AFDC to make an
assignment of support rights to the State, to cooperate with
the State in establishing paternity and securing support, and
to furnish their Social Security number to the State. The
effective date of Public Law 93-647 was July 1, 1975, except
for the provision regarding garnishment of Federal employees,
which was effective upon enactment. However, several problems
were identified prior to the effective date and Congress passed
Public Law 94-46 to extend the effective date to August 1,
1975. In addition, Public Law 94-88 was passed in August 1975
to allow States to obtain waivers from certain program
requirements under certain conditions until June 30, 1976 and
to receive Federal reimbursement at a reduced rate. This law
also eased the requirement for AFDC recipients to cooperate
with State child support agencies when such cooperation would
not be in the best interests of the child and provided for
supplemental payments to AFDC recipients whose grants would be
reduced due to the implementation of the Child Support
Enforcement Program.
1976
Public Law 94-566, effective October 20, 1976, required
State employment agencies to provide absent parents' addresses
to State child support enforcement agencies.
1977
Public Law 95-30, effective May 23, 1977, made several
amendments to Title IV-D. Provisions relating to the
garnishment of a Federal employee's wages for child support
were amended to: (1) include employees of the District of
Columbia; (2) specify the conditions and procedures to be
followed to serve garnishments on Federal agencies; (3)
authorize the issuance of garnishment regulations by the three
branches of the Federal Government and by the District; and (4)
clarify several terms used in the statute. Public Law 95-30
also amended section 454 of the Social Security Act (42 USC
654) to require the State plan to provide bonding for employees
who receive, handle, or disburse cash and to insure that the
accounting and collection functions are performed by different
individuals. In addition, the incentive payment provision,
under section 458(a) of the Social Security Act (42 USC
658(a)), was amended to change the rate to 15 percent of AFDC
collections (from 25 percent for the first 12 months and 10
percent thereafter).
Public Law 95-142, the Medicare-Medicaid Antifraud and
Abuse amendments of 1977, established a medical support
enforcement program under which States could require Medicaid
applicants to assign to the State their rights to medical
support. State Medicaid agencies were allowed to enter into
cooperative agreements with any appropriate agency of any
State, including the IV-D agency, for assistance with the
enforcement and collection of medical support obligations.
Incentives were also made available to localities making child
support collections for States and for States securing
collections on behalf of other States.
1978
Public Law 95-598, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978,
repealed section 456(b) of the Social Security Act (42 USC
656(b)), which had barred the discharge in bankruptcy of
assigned child support debts. (This section of the Act (now
546(h)) was restored by Public Law 97-35 in 1981.)
1980
Public Law 96-178 extended Federal Financial Participation
(FFP) for non-AFDC services to March 31, 1980, retroactive to
October 1, 1978.
Public Law 96-265, the Social Security Disability
amendments of 1980, increased Federal matching funds to 90
percent, effective July 1, 1981, for the costs of developing,
implementing, and enhancing approved automated child support
management information systems. Federal matching funds were
also made available for child support enforcement duties
performed by certain court personnel. In another provision, the
law authorized IRS to collect child support arrearages on
behalf of non-AFDC families. Finally, the law provided State
and local IV-D agencies access to wage information held by the
Social Security Administration and State employment security
agencies for use in establishing and enforcing child support
obligations.
Public Law 96-272, the Adoption Assistance and Child
Welfare Act of 1980, contained four amendments to Title IV-D of
the Social Security Act. First, the law made FFP for non-AFDC
services available on a permanent basis. Second, it allowed
States to receive incentive payments on all AFDC collections as
well as interstate collections. Third, as of October 1, 1979,
States were required to claim reimbursement for expenditures
within 2 years, with some exceptions. The fourth change
postponed until October, 1980 the imposition of the 5 percent
penalty on AFDC reimbursement for States not having effective
Child Support Enforcement Programs.
1981
Public Law 97-35, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of
1981, amended IV-D in five ways. First, IRS was authorized to
withhold all or part of certain individuals' Federal income tax
refunds for collection of delinquent child support obligations.
Second, IV-D agencies were required to collect spousal support
for AFDC families. Third, for non-AFDC cases, IV-D agencies
were required to collect fees from absent parents who were
delinquent in their child support payments. Fourth, child
support obligations assigned to the State no longer were
dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings. Fifth, States were
required to withhold a portion of unemployment benefits from
absent parents delinquent in their support payments.
1982
Public Law 97-248, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility
Act of 1982, included the following provisions, affecting the
IV-D program: FFP was reduced from 75 to 70 percent, effective
October 1, 1982; incentives were reduced from 15 to 12 percent,
effective October 1, 1983; the provision for reimbursement of
costs of certain court personnel that exceed the amount of
funds spent by a State on similar court expenses during
calendar year 1978 was repealed; the mandatory non-AFDC
collection fee imposed by Public Law 97-35 was repealed,
retroactive to August 13, 1981, and States were given the
option of recovering costs by imposing fees on non-AFDC
parents; States were allowed to collect spousal support in
certain non-AFDC cases; as of October 1, 1982, members of the
uniformed services on active duty were required to make
allotments from their pay when support arrearages reached the
equivalent of a 2-month delinquency; beginning October 1, 1982,
States were allowed to reimburse themselves for AFDC grants
paid to families for the first month in which the collection of
child support is sufficient to make a family ineligible for
AFDC.
Public Law 97-253, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of
1982, provided for the disclosure of information obtained under
authority of the Food Stamp Act of 1977 to various programs,
including State child support enforcement agencies.
Public Law 97-252, the Uniformed Services Former Spouses'
Protection Act, authorized treatment of military retirement or
retainer pay as property to be divided by State courts in
connection with divorce, dissolution, annulment, or legal
separation proceedings.
1984
Public Law 98-378, the Child Support Enforcement amendments
of 1984, featured provisions that required improvements in
State and local Child Support Enforcement Programs in four
major areas:
Mandatory enforcement practices
All States must enact statutes to improve enforcement
mechanisms, including: (1) mandatory income withholding
procedures; (2) expedited processes for establishing and
enforcing support orders; (3) State income tax refund
interceptions; (4) liens against real and personal property,
security or bonds to assure compliance with support
obligations; and (5) reports of support delinquency information
to consumer reporting agencies. State law must allow for the
bringing of paternity actions any time prior to a child's 18th
birthday and all support orders issued or modified after
October 1, 1985, must include a provision for wage withholding.
Federal financial participation and audit provisions
To encourage greater reliance on performance-based
incentives, Federal matching funds were reduced by 2 percent in
1988 (to 68 percent) and another 2 percent in 1990 (to 66
percent). Federal matching funds at 90 percent were made
available for the development and installation of automated
systems, including computer hardware purchases, to facilitate
income withholding and other newly required procedures. State
incentive payments were reset at 6 percent for both AFDC and
non-AFDC collections. These percentages could rise as high as
10 percent for each category for cost-effective States, but a
State's non-AFDC incentive payments could not exceed its AFDC
incentives. States were required to pass incentives through to
local child support enforcement agencies if these agencies had
accumulated child support enforcement costs. Annual State
audits were replaced with audits conducted at least once every
3 years. The focus of the audits was altered to evaluate a
State's effectiveness on the basis of program performance as
well as operational compliance. Penalties for noncompliance are
from 1 to 5 percent of the Federal share of the State's AFDC
funds. The Federal Government may suspend imposition of a
penalty based on a State's filing of, and complying with, an
acceptable corrective action plan.
Improved interstate enforcement
States were required to apply a host of enforcement
techniques to interstate cases as well as intrastate cases.
Both States involved in an interstate case may take credit for
the collection when reporting total collections for the purpose
of calculating incentives. Special demonstration grants were
authorized beginning in 1985 to fund innovative methods of
interstate enforcement and collection. Federal audits were
focused on States' effectiveness in establishing and enforcing
obligations across State lines.
Equal services for welfare and non-AFDC families
Several specific requirements were directed at improving
State services to non-AFDC families. All of the mandatory
practices must be made available for both classes of cases; the
interception of Federal income tax refunds was extended to non-
AFDC cases; incentive payments for non-AFDC cases became
available for the first time; States were required to continue
child support services to families terminated from the welfare
rolls without charging an application fee; and States were
required to publicize the availability of support enforcement
services for non-AFDC parents.
Other provisions
States were required to: (1) collect support in certain
foster care cases; (2) collect spousal support in addition to
child support where both are due in a case; (3) notify AFDC
recipients, at least yearly, of the collections made in their
behalf; (4) establish State commissions to study the operation
of the State's child support system and report findings to the
State's Governor; (5) formulate guidelines for determining
appropriate child support obligation amounts and distribute the
guidelines to judges and other individuals who possess
authority to establish obligation amounts; (6) offset the costs
of the program by charging various fees to non-AFDC families
and to delinquent nonresident parents; (7) allow families whose
AFDC eligibility is terminated as a result of the payment of
child support to remain eligible to receive Medicaid for 4
months (sunsets on October 1, 1988); and (8) establish medical
support orders in addition to monetary awards. The Federal
Parent Locator Service was made more accessible and effective
in locating absent parents. Sunset provisions were included in
the extension of Medicaid eligibility and Federal tax offsets
for non-AFDC families.
Public Law 98-369, the Tax Reform Act of 1984, included two
tax provisions pertaining to alimony and child support. Under
prior law, alimony was deductible by the payor and includable
in the income of the payee. The 1984 law revised the rules
relating to the definition of alimony. Generally, only cash
payments that terminate on the death of the payee spouse
qualify as alimony. Alimony payments, if in excess of $10,000
per year, generally must be payable for at least 6 years and
must not decline by more than $10,000. The prior law
requirement that the payment be based on a legal support
obligation was repealed and payors were required to furnish to
the IRS the Social Security number of the payee spouse. A $50
penalty for failure to do so was imposed. The provision was
effective for divorce or separation agreements or orders
executed after 1984. The 1984 law also provided that the $1,000
dependency exemption for a child of divorced or separated
parents be allocated to the custodial parent unless the
custodial parent signs a written declaration that she will not
claim the exemption for the year. For purposes of computing the
medical expense deduction for years after 1984, each parent may
claim the medical expenses that he or she pays for the child.
1986
Public Law 99-509, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of
1986, included one child support enforcement amendment
prohibiting the retroactive modification of child support
awards. Under this new requirement, State laws must provide for
either parent to apply for modification of an existing order
with notice provided to the other parent. No modification is
permitted before the date of this notification.
1987
Public Law 100-203, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1987, required States to provide child support enforcement
services to all families with an absent parent who receives
Medicaid and have assigned their support rights to the State,
regardless of whether they are receiving AFDC.
1988
Public Law 100-485, the Family Support Act of 1988,
emphasized the duties of parents to work and support their
children and, in particular, emphasized child support
enforcement as the first line of defense against welfare
dependence. The key child support provisions include:
Guidelines for child support awards
Judges and other officials are required to use State
guidelines for child support unless they rebut the guidelines
by a written finding that applying them would be unjust or
inappropriate in a particular case. States must review
guidelines for awards every four years. Beginning 5 years after
enactment, States generally must review and adjust individual
case awards every 3 years for AFDC cases. The same applies to
other IV-D cases, except review and adjustment must be at the
request of a parent.
Establishment of paternity
States are required to meet Federal standards for the
establishment of paternity. The primary standard relates to the
percentage obtained by dividing the number of children in the
State who are born out of wedlock, are receiving cash benefits
or IV-D child support services, and for whom paternity has been
established by the number of children who are born out of
wedlock and are receiving cash benefits or IV-D child support
services. To meet Federal requirements, this percentage in a
State must: (1) be at least 50 percent; (2) be at least equal
to the average for all States; or (3) have increased by 3
percentage points from fiscal years 1988 to 1991 and by 3
percentage points each year thereafter. States are mandated to
require all parties in a contested paternity case to take a
genetic test upon request of any party. The Federal matching
rate for laboratory testing to establish paternity is set at 90
percent.
Disregard of child support
The child support enforcement disregard authorized under
the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 is clarified so that it
applies to a payment made by the noncustodial parent in the
month it was due even though it was received in a subsequent
month.
Requirement for prompt State response
The Secretary of HHS was required to set time limits within
which States must accept and respond to requests for assistance
in establishing and enforcing support orders as well as time
limits within which child support payments collected by the
State IV-D agency must be distributed to the families to whom
they are owed.
Requirement for automated tracking and monitoring system
Every State that does not have a statewide automated
tracking and monitoring system in effect must submit an advance
planning document that meets Federal requirements by October 1,
1991. The Secretary must approve each document within 9 months
after submission. By October 1, 1995, every State must have an
approved system in effect. States were awarded 90 percent
Federal matching rates for this activity until September 30,
1995.
Interstate enforcement
A Commission on Interstate Child Support was created to
hold national conferences on interstate child support
enforcement reform and to report to Congress no later than
October 1, 1990 on recommendations for improvements in the
system and revisions in the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of
Support Act.
Computing incentive payments
Amounts spent by States for interstate demonstration
projects are excluded from calculating the amount of the
States' incentive payments.
Use of INTERNET system
The Secretaries of Labor and HHS are required to enter into
an agreement to give the Federal Parent Locator Service prompt
access to wage and unemployment compensation claims information
useful in locating absent parents.
Wage withholding
With respect to IV-D cases, each State must provide for
immediate wage withholding in the case of orders that are
issued or modified on or after the first day of the 25th month
beginning after the date of enactment unless: (1) one of the
parties demonstrates, and the court finds, that there is good
cause not to require such withholding; or (2) there is a
written agreement between both parties providing for an
alternative arrangement. Prior law requirements for mandatory
wage withholding in cases where payments are in arrears apply
to orders that are not subject to immediate wage withholding.
States are required to provide for immediate wage withholding
for all support orders initially issued on or after January 1,
1994, regardless of whether a parent has applied for IV-D
services.
Work and training demonstration programs for noncustodial parents
The Secretary of HHS is required to grant waivers to up to
five States to allow them to provide services to noncustodial
parents under the JOBS Program. No new power is granted to the
States to require participation by noncustodial parents.
Data collection and reporting
The Secretary of HHS is required to collect and maintain
State-by-State statistics on paternity establishment, location
of absent parent for the purpose of establishing a support
obligation, enforcement of a child support obligation, and
location of absent parents for the purpose of enforcing or
modifying an established obligation.
Use of Social Security number
Each State must, in the administration of any law involving
the issuance of a birth certificate, require each parent to
furnish his or her Social Security number (SSN), unless the
State finds good cause for not requiring the parent to furnish
it. The SSN shall appear in the birth record but not on the
birth certificate, and the use of the SSN obtained through the
birth record is restricted to child support enforcement
purposes, except under certain circumstances.
Notification of support collected
Each State is required to inform families receiving AFDC of
the amount of support collected on their behalf on a monthly
basis, rather than annually as provided under prior law. States
may provide quarterly notification if the Secretary of HHS
determines that monthly reporting imposes an unreasonable
administrative burden. This provision is effective 4 years
after the date of enactment. The Medicaid transition benefit in
child support cases is extended from October 1, 1988 to October
1, 1989.
1989
Public Law 101-239, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1989, made permanent the requirement that Medicaid benefits
continue for 4 months after a family loses AFDC eligibility as
a result of collection of child support payments.
1990
Public Law 101-508, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1990, permanently extended the Federal provision that allows
States to ask the IRS to collect child support arrearages of at
least $500 out of income tax refunds otherwise due to
noncustodial parents. The minor child restriction is eliminated
for adults with a current support order who are disabled, as
defined under OASDI or SSI. The IRS offset can be used for
spousal support when spousal and child support are included in
the same support order. The life of the Interstate Child
Support Commission was extended from July 1, 1991 to July 1,
1992, and the Commission was required to submit its report no
later than May 1, 1992. The Commission was allowed to hire its
own staff.
1992
Public Law 102-521, the Child Support Recovery Act of 1992,
imposed a Federal criminal penalty for the willful failure to
pay a past due child support obligation with respect to a child
who resides in another State that has remained unpaid for
longer than a year or is greater than $5,000. For the first
conviction the penalty is a fine of up to $5,000, imprisonment
for not more than 6 months, or both; for a second conviction,
the penalty is a fine of not more than $250,000, imprisonment
for up to 2 years, or both.
Public Law 102-537, the Ted Weiss Child Support Enforcement
Act of 1992, amended the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require
consumer credit reporting agencies to include in any consumer
report information on child support delinquencies provided by
or verified by State or local child support agencies, which
antedates the report by 7 years.
1993
Public Law 103-66, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of
1993, increased the percentage of children, from 50 to 75, for
whom the State must establish paternity and required States to
adopt laws requiring civil procedures to voluntarily
acknowledge paternity (including hospital-based programs). The
Act also required States to adopt laws to ensure the compliance
of health insurers and employers in carrying out court or
administrative orders for medical child support and included a
provision that forbids health insurers to deny coverage to
children who are not living with the covered individual or who
were born outside marriage.
1994
Public Law 103-383, the Full Faith and Credit for Child
Support Orders Act, requires each State to enforce, according
to its terms, a child support order by a court (or
administrative authority) of another State, with conditions and
specifications for resolving issues of jurisdiction.
Public Law 103-394, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1994,
stipulates that a filing of bankruptcy does not stay a
paternity, child support, or alimony proceeding. In addition,
child support and alimony payments are made priority claims and
custodial parents are able to appear in bankruptcy court to
protect their interests without paying a fee or meeting any
local rules for attorney appearances.
Public Law 103-403, the Small Business Administration
amendments of 1994, makes parents who fail to pay child support
ineligible for small business loans.
Public Law 103-432, the Social Security Act amendments of
1994, includes a provision that requires States to implement
procedures that require the State to periodically report to
consumer reporting agencies the name of debtor parents owing at
least 2 months of overdue child support, and the amount of
child support overdue.
1995
Public Law 104-35 extends for 2 years the deadline by which
States are required to have in effect an automated data
processing and information retrieval system for use in the
administration of their Child Support Enforcement Program (from
October 1, 1995, to October 1, 1997). The 90 percent Federal
funding was not extended.
STATISTICAL TABLES
TABLE 9-10.--PERCENTAGE OF AFDC FAMILIES AFFECTED BY $50 PASSTHROUGH: 1985, 1990, 1993, AND 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percent of families affected Number of
------------------------------------------- families
State affected,
1985 1990 1993 1995 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama................................................... 11.7 19.1 36.3 45.0 20,622
Alaska.................................................... 11.9 20.7 18.8 20.7 2,171
Arizona................................................... 4.8 4.9 3.9 11.1 7,583
Arkansas.................................................. 15.9 19.7 29.5 29.3 7,027
California................................................ 13.8 12.7 11.5 15.3 115,698
Colorado.................................................. 14.1 15.1 20.7 26.1 9,854
Connecticut............................................... 25.6 19.3 20.3 21.8 12,623
Delaware.................................................. 21.7 18.0 22.3 24.6 2,625
District of Columbia...................................... 5.8 7.5 7.6 7.3 1,931
Florida................................................... 11.4 24.0 15.3 19.0 42,915
Georgia................................................... 5.3 19.6 19.2 22.8 31,449
Guam...................................................... 10.5 19.9 35.9 28.6 546
Hawaii.................................................... 20.5 13.2 17.4 9.6 1,947
Idaho..................................................... 46.7 46.6 52.7 52.0 4,449
Illinois.................................................. 5.5 7.9 8.1 8.8 19,835
Indiana................................................... 25.9 27.8 34.6 118.1 74,769
Iowa...................................................... 22.7 22.8 26.6 30.4 10,008
Kansas.................................................... 15.2 24.0 34.9 48.2 12,813
Kentucky.................................................. 7.6 13.4 17.0 14.2 10,057
Louisiana................................................. 6.9 8.5 9.3 10.2 8,016
Maine..................................................... 25.6 39.3 34.7 51.4 10,161
Maryland.................................................. 15.0 10.9 18.1 20.2 14,666
Massachusetts............................................. 20.2 16.3 11.5 15.4 14,830
Michigan.................................................. 17.2 25.3 27.1 30.3 54,031
Minnesota................................................. 22.5 28.0 35.1 44.0 23,018
Mississippi............................................... 4.8 9.2 13.3 15.4 8,024
Missouri.................................................. 8.2 18.5 17.5 16.6 14,436
Montana................................................... 13.9 15.2 18.1 18.3 1,924
Nebraska.................................................. 11.3 20.6 29.2 38.5 5,411
Nevada.................................................... 33.6 29.8 33.3 29.3 4,474
New Hampshire............................................. 12.6 13.5 34.1 35.4 3,729
New Jersey................................................ 15.4 15.8 20.8 23.0 26,501
New Mexico................................................ 7.6 11.8 9.9 13.4 4,412
New York.................................................. 9.2 11.8 11.7 10.9 47,586
North Carolina............................................ 15.0 19.5 19.0 20.5 25,139
North Dakota.............................................. 25.1 36.7 39.2 38.9 1,973
Ohio...................................................... 11.6 19.9 15.0 19.4 41,123
Oklahoma.................................................. 8.4 13.4 9.7 12.0 5,323
Oregon.................................................... 16.0 17.6 25.8 31.0 11,225
Pennsylvania.............................................. 16.3 20.8 26.2 25.9 50,901
Puerto Rico............................................... 4.7 4.2 3.1 4.2 2,303
Rhode Island.............................................. 13.9 17.9 12.7 17.2 3,693
South Carolina............................................ 8.9 26.3 25.3 30.8 14,899
South Dakota.............................................. 17.6 21.4 26.5 39.0 2,436
Tennessee................................................. 9.8 15.2 10.7 11.5 10,864
Texas..................................................... 3.1 5.8 6.7 8.0 21,149
Utah...................................................... 26.9 23.7 25.9 32.4 5,355
Vermont................................................... 21.9 36.5 40.1 25.3 2,087
Virgin Islands............................................ 10.2 11.6 12.8 11.6 152
Virginia.................................................. 14.9 24.9 23.9 44.6 31,941
Washington................................................ 18.0 24.8 32.0 35.2 30,381
West Virginia............................................. 6.6 7.1 11.0 13.0 4,287
Wisconsin................................................. 37.8 38.9 40.6 45.5 30,663
Wyoming................................................... 8.0 21.7 24.3 27.0 1,385
-----------------------------------------------------
Nationwide total........................................ 13.2 16.3 16.8 20.5 927,420
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--These estimates are based on the number of ``paying'' child support cases adjusted for comparability with
AFDC families.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-11.--STATE PROFILE OF COLLECTIONS AND EXPENDITURES, FISCAL YEAR 1995 \1\
[In millions of dollars]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Child support collections
per dollar of administrative
Total AFDC Non-AFDC Total expenditures Incentive
State collections collections collections expenditures ------------------------------ payments
AFDC/FC Non-AFDC (estimate)
Total total total
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama.................................................. $141.2 $21.9 $120.7 $62.9 2.24 0.34 1.91 $3.4
Alaska................................................... 51.7 16.2 35.5 17.6 2.93 0.91 2.02 2.6
Arizona.................................................. 93.8 24.1 70.0 63.4 1.48 0.38 1.10 3.8
Arkansas................................................. 63.9 16.9 47.3 23.2 2.75 0.73 2.03 2.9
California............................................... 857.3 414.0 460.4 394.3 2.17 1.02 1.16 58.2
Colorado................................................. 91.9 31.2 60.7 36.1 2.54 0.86 1.68 5.9
Connecticut.............................................. 117.7 52.7 64.3 40.9 2.88 1.32 1.56 5.0
Delaware................................................. 31.6 8.0 23.5 15.5 2.04 0.52 1.52 1.3
District of Columbia..................................... 26.0 5.9 20.1 12.8 2.03 0.46 1.57 1.1
Florida.................................................. 374.0 89.2 290.1 106.0 3.53 0.80 2.73 15.6
Georgia.................................................. 244.4 93.7 159.4 69.9 3.50 1.22 2.28 17.2
Guam..................................................... 6.0 1.8 4.4 4.5 1.33 0.38 0.95 0.9
Hawaii................................................... 48.8 11.4 37.8 20.7 2.36 0.55 1.81 1.6
Idaho.................................................... 40.7 10.9 29.8 17.1 2.39 0.64 1.75 1.8
Illinois................................................. 219.3 65.4 154.6 98.6 2.23 0.66 1.56 9.6
Indiana.................................................. 174.4 51.0 124.7 33.7 5.18 1.51 3.67 11.5
Iowa..................................................... 136.1 41.1 95.4 28.9 4.72 1.42 3.30 6.9
Kansas................................................... 97.6 27.6 70.0 57.7 1.69 0.48 1.21 4.0
Kentucky................................................. 130.6 42.0 89.7 40.7 3.21 0.96 2.24 6.6
Louisiana................................................ 129.6 23.9 102.4 38.5 3.37 0.73 2.64 4.0
Maine.................................................... 57.4 28.4 28.9 13.4 4.28 2.12 2.16 3.5
Maryland................................................. 265.3 44.3 216.7 65.2 4.07 0.73 3.34 5.8
Massachusetts............................................ 223.6 77.1 146.5 63.1 3.54 1.22 2.32 11.1
Michigan................................................. 859.6 167.2 692.0 119.3 7.20 1.41 5.80 27.3
Minnesota................................................ 283.5 64.5 219.2 71.6 3.96 0.90 3.06 8.7
Mississippi.............................................. 68.2 19.8 46.0 31.5 2.16 0.70 1.46 3.1
Missouri................................................. 238.7 58.9 180.9 69.9 3.41 0.83 2.59 8.6
Montana.................................................. 25.5 7.5 18.1 8.9 2.87 0.84 2.03 0.9
Nebraska................................................. 90.1 11.3 78.8 26.2 3.44 0.43 3.01 1.7
Nevada................................................... 50.1 7.6 42.4 24.1 2.08 0.32 1.76 1.9
New Hampshire............................................ 42.6 10.8 31.8 17.0 2.50 0.63 1.87 1.3
New Jersey............................................... 480.3 88.9 391.3 78.3 6.13 1.14 5.00 12.5
New Mexico............................................... 26.9 9.9 18.3 17.5 1.54 0.53 1.01 1.5
New York................................................. 619.5 185.5 433.2 182.8 3.39 1.02 2.37 27.3
North Carolina........................................... 233.1 73.1 160.6 97.2 2.40 0.77 1.63 10.7
North Dakota............................................. 25.5 6.4 19.2 6.2 4.13 1.03 3.11 1.0
Ohio..................................................... 886.8 120.7 767.4 157.4 5.63 0.76 4.87 17.1
Oklahoma................................................. 63.9 22.3 41.6 23.7 2.70 0.94 1.76 3.1
Oregon................................................... 156.8 30.6 126.3 32.6 4.81 0.94 3.87 5.9
Pennsylvania............................................. 895.7 139.3 763.9 109.9 8.15 1.23 6.92 17.5
Puerto Rico.............................................. 107.4 2.4 106.9 27.1 3.96 0.09 3.87 0.6
Rhode Island............................................. 32.6 17.6 14.9 9.5 3.45 1.87 1.58 2.5
South Carolina........................................... 102.9 28.6 74.8 36.2 2.84 0.77 2.07 4.0
South Dakota............................................. 24.8 6.1 18.7 4.7 5.27 1.30 3.97 1.0
Tennessee................................................ 156.9 39.6 109.7 41.8 3.75 1.14 2.61 6.0
Texas.................................................... 448.5 89.4 359.9 149.2 3.01 0.59 2.41 12.8
Utah..................................................... 63.4 20.9 42.5 32.3 1.96 0.65 1.32 2.8
Vermont.................................................. 21.2 8.3 13.1 7.9 2.69 1.05 1.64 1.5
Virgin Islands........................................... 5.4 0.3 5.0 6.3 0.86 0.06 0.80 0.0
Virginia................................................. 226.7 48.8 179.7 62.4 3.63 0.77 2.86 6.5
Washington............................................... 375.3 109.8 265.5 112.1 3.35 0.98 2.37 16.0
West Virginia............................................ 72.8 14.7 59.1 22.5 3.24 0.62 2.62 1.9
Wisconsin................................................ 427.5 94.6 333.0 70.2 6.09 1.35 4.74 9.6
Wyoming.................................................. 17.3 5.3 11.4 9.9 1.76 0.47 1.28 0.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. totals........................................ $10,752.4 $2,709.4 $8,078.1 $2,990.9 3.60 0.90 2.69 $400.4
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Totals may not add due of rounding.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-12.--TOTAL CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTIONS, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1979-95
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1979 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama........................... 6,854 66,174 80,952 98,141 113,273 127,908 141,212
Alaska............................ 3,844 26,788 30,721 35,613 39,148 45,851 51,734
Arizona........................... 6,411 27,837 33,277 46,447 66,580 77,419 93,812
Arkansas.......................... 3,921 26,010 32,783 42,065 49,147 55,215 63,875
California........................ 199,945 522,646 591,243 653,681 736,855 811,493 857,282
Colorado.......................... 4,020 39,601 46,997 58,030 67,723 80,288 91,870
Connecticut....................... 23,033 66,724 75,778 84,190 93,454 98,448 117,723
Delaware.......................... 5,814 20,161 22,692 25,926 26,663 29,663 31,551
District of Columbia.............. 1,086 13,598 16,578 19,733 21,798 24,079 26,040
Florida........................... 10,524 176,603 214,153 252,473 289,976 327,296 374,015
Georgia........................... 5,554 113,095 143,014 174,467 205,566 229,822 244,367
Guam.............................. 160 1,440 3,162 4,697 5,003 7,079 6,037
Hawaii............................ 5,150 27,638 30,096 34,404 37,327 45,107 48,751
Idaho............................. 2,501 22,909 23,442 27,846 32,127 36,942 40,747
Illinois.......................... 10,740 136,019 150,134 183,308 183,889 202,191 219,340
Indiana........................... 9,073 96,145 110,117 124,614 141,164 151,626 174,450
Iowa.............................. 13,017 70,982 80,693 96,046 109,278 122,705 136,138
Kansas............................ 3,975 44,958 54,832 66,053 59,601 86,744 97,571
Kentucky.......................... 4,881 59,998 73,928 93,902 103,587 121,427 130,640
Louisiana......................... 12,678 60,527 67,988 84,373 103,054 118,008 129,609
Maine............................. 4,574 35,741 36,554 38,005 44,963 51,184 57,361
Maryland.......................... 20,856 151,352 163,626 194,009 219,085 244,645 265,344
Massachusetts..................... 36,338 176,915 169,545 185,086 195,374 203,986 223,560
Michigan.......................... 248,414 644,734 697,634 782,804 874,483 898,372 859,629
Minnesota......................... 21,370 139,345 160,363 189,495 214,480 246,252 283,538
Mississippi....................... 1,662 30,532 40,277 48,289 53,505 62,379 68,205
Missouri.......................... 5,829 129,851 141,372 166,339 189,161 214,362 238,700
Montana........................... 1,213 8,822 12,968 17,436 20,150 21,363 25,532
Nebraska.......................... 2,468 52,378 57,055 66,177 71,708 81,082 90,055
Nevada............................ 3,487 16,210 23,346 32,080 37,641 43,722 50,066
New Hampshire..................... 2,089 20,604 22,659 27,360 31,497 36,538 42,570
New Jersey........................ 94,005 281,923 326,879 372,506 407,849 439,748 480,327
New Mexico........................ 1,680 14,416 16,792 19,088 27,117 30,082 26,938
New York.......................... 136,361 373,718 437,371 487,738 536,374 569,682 619,489
North Carolina.................... 9,168 120,344 140,222 167,894 197,254 226,632 233,145
North Dakota...................... 1,723 10,414 12,309 15,599 18,693 21,878 25,522
Ohio.............................. 22,832 489,515 552,649 665,999 714,132 789,319 886,843
Oklahoma.......................... 1,826 32,169 39,922 46,540 52,170 57,578 63,908
Oregon............................ 88,502 78,374 91,252 107,435 124,929 142,227 156,829
Pennsylvania...................... 186,718 614,222 699,676 775,782 814,480 861,653 895,720
Puerto Rico....................... 1,916 74,535 77,252 84,329 97,357 98,628 107,397
Rhode Island...................... 3,575 20,044 21,609 24,880 26,671 29,900 32,634
South Carolina.................... 3,545 52,320 58,857 68,798 79,280 90,628 102,912
South Dakota...................... 1,407 11,024 13,119 15,881 18,112 21,357 24,838
Tennessee......................... 8,976 71,502 77,032 84,818 116,152 141,388 156,904
Texas............................. 8,207 132,318 192,797 251,157 309,502 367,171 448,463
Utah.............................. 6,624 38,071 43,895 52,610 56,199 61,135 63,426
Vermont........................... 1,449 9,353 11,023 13,518 15,831 17,950 21,234
Virgin Islands.................... 260 3,131 3,338 4,049 4,992 5,562 5,399
Virginia.......................... 9,197 110,560 129,919 145,114 151,919 182,787 226,682
Washington........................ 27,018 175,750 222,409 267,455 307,251 340,488 375,257
West Virginia..................... 1,592 21,658 23,527 35,561 49,016 54,402 72,796
Wisconsin......................... 34,267 241,272 276,712 293,460 332,814 380,584 427,487
Wyoming........................... 520 7,155 9,079 11,220 13,810 16,184 17,350
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nationwide total.............. 1,332,847 6,010,125 6,885,619 7,964,522 8,909,166 9,850,159 10,752,824
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-13.--TOTAL AFDC COLLECTIONS, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1979-95
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1979 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama............................ 6,830 19,484 22,788 23,001 22,539 21,148 21,115
Alaska............................. 334 8,160 9,940 11,145 11,722 13,645 16,138
Arizona............................ 642 6,102 7,401 12,693 18,616 21,175 24,217
Arkansas........................... 2,428 11,799 13,800 15,766 16,249 15,662 16,831
California......................... 117,532 248,440 286,261 314,232 335,235 374,548 401,573
Colorado........................... 3,525 16,765 19,281 23,287 26,197 29,415 31,192
Connecticut........................ 11,416 27,405 33,816 37,744 41,292 41,465 54,100
Delaware........................... 1,386 5,826 6,661 7,306 7,798 7,855 8,029
District of Columbia............... 907 4,118 4,407 4,927 5,197 5,614 5,923
Florida............................ 8,598 48,364 57,071 69,765 78,081 80,368 85,244
Georgia............................ 4,772 45,937 57,765 74,546 84,627 84,820 84,932
Guam............................... 159 520 1,635 2,524 2,344 1,948 1,723
Hawaii............................. 2,544 8,343 7,699 8,161 9,058 9,951 11,367
Idaho.............................. 2,047 6,952 7,482 8,543 8,746 10,086 10,912
Illinois........................... 9,916 44,149 48,968 58,842 55,749 61,112 65,091
Indiana............................ 8,116 38,124 45,030 49,247 52,040 51,945 50,962
Iowa............................... 10,654 28,552 30,585 35,401 36,775 40,105 41,007
Kansas............................. 3,454 15,209 17,454 20,869 22,402 24,732 27,567
Kentucky........................... 4,615 22,286 27,502 34,702 36,565 37,979 39,299
Louisiana.......................... 5,244 20,861 23,089 25,975 26,827 26,714 28,133
Maine.............................. 4,133 21,089 21,063 21,477 25,683 27,783 28,435
Maryland........................... 10,929 42,318 37,162 46,348 51,313 48,031 47,419
Massachusetts...................... 29,145 68,968 66,969 71,784 77,292 76,899 77,085
Michigan........................... 76,375 145,251 153,690 168,317 169,581 176,100 167,673
Minnesota.......................... 14,510 43,950 47,802 53,305 55,961 61,418 64,406
Mississippi........................ 1,556 14,530 19,494 21,523 21,641 22,962 22,067
Missouri........................... 4,165 38,056 37,021 49,653 51,153 55,959 57,788
Montana............................ 685 4,394 5,251 6,413 6,464 6,118 7,452
Nebraska........................... 2,083 6,990 7,431 9,195 9,797 10,158 11,337
Nevada............................. 517 3,311 4,465 6,807 7,021 7,271 7,643
New Hampshire...................... 2,089 3,606 4,385 6,337 7,638 9,446 10,776
New Jersey......................... 28,622 61,473 76,644 83,509 84,020 86,357 88,932
New Mexico......................... 1,160 5,573 6,421 7,850 12,922 13,389 9,257
New York........................... 56,588 134,040 157,582 174,587 184,583 183,707 187,205
North Carolina..................... 7,714 46,176 54,712 64,004 70,304 76,808 75,209
North Dakota....................... 1,379 5,103 5,600 6,016 6,098 6,148 6,334
Ohio............................... 21,974 76,888 84,304 100,833 105,719 113,425 120,127
Oklahoma........................... 1,260 11,875 14,894 17,682 18,784 20,817 22,287
Oregon............................. 12,977 18,877 21,989 25,637 28,357 30,119 30,586
Pennsylvania....................... 33,190 96,328 113,735 123,784 124,490 26,932 134,995
Puerto Rico........................ 439 1,707 1,600 1,428 1,344 1,445 2,418
Rhode Island....................... 3,438 10,168 10,550 13,486 14,954 16,539 17,704
South Carolina..................... 3,065 15,933 17,779 21,066 24,588 27,063 27,933
South Dakota....................... 1,137 3,717 4,213 4,888 5,056 5,645 6,129
Tennessee.......................... 3,871 22,926 27,865 22,777 33,422 34,852 47,576
Texas.............................. 6,370 39,659 47,255 59,165 66,199 75,830 88,507
Utah............................... 5,442 14,999 16,261 18,939 19,488 20,691 20,948
Vermont............................ 1,201 5,578 6,380 6,649 7,638 7,424 8,312
Virgin Islands..................... 143 210 233 282 343 357 352
Virginia........................... 9,081 27,770 33,910 38,281 39,610 37,579 48,109
Washington......................... 18,319 65,291 77,402 91,083 100,337 104,063 109,763
West Virginia...................... 1,430 4,085 6,859 9,500 16,867 12,377 13,846
Wisconsin.......................... 26,044 59,303 61,179 63,813 65,439 81,437 94,558
Wyoming............................ 379 2,584 3,226 3,749 4,345 4,288 4,665
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nationwide total............... 596,532 1,750,125 1,983,962 2,258,844 2,416,511 2,549,723 2,693,186
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-14.--TOTAL NON-AFDC COLLECTIONS, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1979-95
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1979 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama............................. $16 $46,691 $58,165 $75,140 $90,733 $106,760 $120,098
Alaska.............................. 3,510 18,628 20,781 24,468 27,426 32,207 35,596
Arizona............................. 5,769 21,735 25,875 33,754 47,963 56,243 69,594
Arkansas............................ 1,494 14,211 18,984 26,299 32,899 39,553 47,045
California.......................... 82,412 274,205 304,982 339,449 401,620 436,945 455,708
Colorado............................ 496 22,836 27,715 34,743 41,527 50,873 60,678
Connecticut......................... 11,617 39,319 41,960 46,445 52,161 56,983 63,623
Delaware............................ 4,428 14,335 16,032 18,620 18,865 21,809 23,522
District of Columbia................ 179 9,481 12,171 14,806 16,601 18,465 20,117
Florida............................. 1,926 128,239 157,081 182,707 211,896 246,928 288,770
Georgia............................. 783 67,158 85,249 99,921 120,939 145,002 159,435
Guam................................ (\1\) 920 1,527 2,172 2,659 5,131 4,314
Hawaii.............................. 2,606 19,295 22,397 26,243 28,269 35,156 37,384
Idaho............................... 454 15,957 15,960 19,302 23,381 26,856 29,835
Illinois............................ 823 91,870 101,167 124,467 128,140 141,079 154,249
Indiana............................. 957 58,021 65,087 75,368 89,125 99,680 123,488
Iowa................................ 2,363 42,430 50,109 60,645 72,503 82,599 95,131
Kansas.............................. 520 29,749 37,379 45,183 37,199 62,012 70,003
Kentucky............................ 266 37,711 46,426 59,200 67,022 83,448 91,341
Louisiana........................... 7,434 39,665 44,898 58,398 76,227 91,293 101,476
Maine............................... 441 14,652 15,490 16,528 19,280 23,402 28,927
Maryland............................ 9,927 109,034 126,464 147,660 167,771 196,614 217,925
Massachusetts....................... 7,193 107,948 102,576 113,302 118,082 127,087 146,475
Michigan............................ 172,039 499,483 543,944 614,488 704,903 722,273 691,956
Minnesota........................... 6,861 95,395 112,561 136,190 158,519 184,834 219,131
Mississippi......................... 106 16,002 20,783 26,766 31,864 39,417 46,139
Missouri............................ 1,664 91,795 104,351 116,686 138,008 158,403 180,912
Montana............................. 528 4,427 7,718 11,024 13,686 15,245 18,080
Nebraska............................ 385 45,387 49,624 56,983 61,911 70,925 78,718
Nevada.............................. 2,970 12,899 18,881 25,273 30,620 36,451 42,423
New Hampshire....................... 0 16,999 18,274 21,023 23,859 27,092 31,793
New Jersey.......................... 65,383 220,450 250,235 288,997 323,829 353,390 391,395
New Mexico.......................... 520 8,843 10,371 11,239 14,195 16,693 17,681
New York............................ 79,773 239,678 279,289 313,151 351,791 385,974 432,284
North Carolina...................... 1,454 74,167 85,510 103,890 126,951 149,824 157,936
North Dakota........................ 344 5,312 6,708 9,583 12,595 15,730 19,188
Ohio................................ 858 412,627 468,346 565,166 608,413 675,895 766,715
Oklahoma............................ 566 20,293 25,028 28,858 33,386 36,760 41,621
Oregon.............................. 75,525 59,497 69,263 81,798 96,572 112,108 126,244
Pennsylvania........................ 153,528 517,893 517,893 651,998 689,990 734,721 760,725
Puerto Rico......................... 1,477 72,828 75,652 82,901 96,014 97,184 104,979
Rhode Island........................ 137 9,876 11,059 11,394 11,717 13,361 14,931
South Carolina...................... 480 36,387 41,078 47,732 54,692 63,565 74,978
South Dakota........................ 270 7,307 8,906 10,993 13,056 15,711 18,709
Tennessee........................... 5,105 48,575 49,167 62,041 82,730 106,536 109,328
Texas............................... 1,837 92,659 145,543 191,993 243,303 291,341 359,956
Utah................................ 1,183 23,073 27,634 33,671 36,712 40,445 42,478
Vermont............................. 249 3,775 4,643 6,869 8,193 10,526 12,922
Virgin Islands...................... 116 2,920 3,105 3,767 4,649 5,205 5,047
Virginia............................ 116 82,789 96,008 106,833 112,309 145,207 178,572
Washington.......................... 8,699 110,459 145,006 176,372 206,914 236,425 265,495
West Virginia....................... 162 17,574 16,668 26,061 32,149 42,025 58,951
Wisconsin........................... 8,224 181,969 215,533 229,647 267,374 299,147 332,929
Wyoming............................. 141 4,571 5,853 7,471 9,465 11,896 12,685
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nationwide total.............. 736,315 4,260,000 4,901,657 5,705,678 6,492,655 7,300,436 8,059,637
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Less than $500.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-15.--AVERAGE NUMBER OF AFDC CHILD SUPPORT CASES IN WHICH A COLLECTION WAS MADE, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1978-95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1978 1985 1987 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama..................................................... 7,966 9,133 11,572 12,316 10,860 8,347 9,209 9,077 7,679
Alaska...................................................... 246 1,120 1,038 1,213 1,387 1,718 1,949 2,168 2,415
Arizona..................................................... 819 1,851 1,470 2,545 3,128 1,930 2,822 3,343 7,384
Arkansas.................................................... 2,509 5,207 5,506 6,278 6,372 7,071 8,188 8,301 6,773
California.................................................. 92,325 103,742 74,081 84,367 89,304 104,903 116,118 123,776 173,547
Colorado.................................................... 3,177 5,687 4,092 4,771 4,437 4,581 5,126 5,210 4,418
Connecticut................................................. 8,002 15,565 13,337 7,470 6,578 7,128 8,445 9,437 10,792
Delaware.................................................... 1,156 2,891 2,858 2,111 2,223 2,495 2,663 2,913 2,880
District of Columbia........................................ 708 1,925 2,138 2,553 1,758 1,940 2,281 2,437 2,534
Florida..................................................... 7,376 16,468 30,114 34,883 38,500 40,687 40,135 44,727 49,284
Georgia..................................................... 6,350 6,657 10,710 14,833 19,310 23,280 24,729 26,676 28,639
Guam........................................................ (\1\) 206 197 182 339 573 616 683 646
Hawaii...................................................... 1,757 4,622 3,175 3,831 2,658 2,773 4,651 4,551 2,920
Idaho....................................................... 1,346 4,343 1,245 1,522 1,752 1,992 2,356 2,719 3,130
Illinois.................................................... 9,624 18,299 14,352 14,986 16,968 23,511 23,639 26,028 28,430
Indiana..................................................... 9,488 22,058 16,188 17,716 20,444 26,344 30,823 31,159 111,078
Iowa........................................................ 8,396 11,871 7,015 7,241 7,289 7,153 7,681 7,365 7,057
Kansas...................................................... 2,859 4,769 3,798 3,565 4,595 5,268 6,120 6,857 7,515
Kentucky.................................................... 3,083 6,729 6,853 8,699 10,741 12,513 13,516 15,217 12,679
Louisiana................................................... 5,204 7,836 9,916 11,582 11,842 12,198 12,510 12,164 11,887
Maine....................................................... 2,368 7,178 4,734 5,200 5,515 5,767 5,287 7,013 8,793
Maryland.................................................... 14,002 15,861 9,073 5,250 9,237 18,330 19,366 18,684 18,119
Massachusetts............................................... 17,782 25,350 17,211 16,610 16,029 16,106 17,961 18,378 22,245
Michigan.................................................... 61,985 59,049 58,364 47,388 51,747 46,647 45,112 45,211 39,332
Minnesota................................................... 9,818 14,872 12,442 13,822 14,192 12,658 14,563 16,440 17,170
Mississippi................................................. 1,846 3,742 4,544 6,410 7,237 8,808 9,604 10,157 9,970
Missouri.................................................... (\2\) 7,716 6,483 9,894 11,178 11,241 13,430 14,135 13,096
Montana..................................................... 748 1,600 849 1,086 1,140 1,298 1,551 1,816 2,169
Nebraska.................................................... 1,509 2,362 2,555 2,666 2,811 3,255 4,802 4,811 5,538
Nevada...................................................... 494 2,370 1,645 1,917 2,269 2,404 3,096 3,506 3,518
New Hampshire............................................... 1,530 1,021 981 988 1,091 1,454 2,240 2,703 3,328
New Jersey.................................................. 16,243 27,686 25,182 18,415 17,591 19,728 24,376 26,241 26,899
New Mexico.................................................. 1,429 2,034 2,175 3,147 3,766 4,383 3,865 4,385 6,613
New York.................................................... 36,287 48,979 30,993 36,695 40,219 46,382 51,290 51,407 51,943
North Carolina.............................................. 11,232 14,216 17,089 19,157 20,381 24,699 28,028 29,649 28,027
North Dakota................................................ 759 1,656 1,130 1,338 1,647 1,665 1,597 1,579 943
Ohio........................................................ 24,419 32,582 35,273 40,308 35,973 34,446 38,445 39,857 47,323
Oklahoma.................................................... 1,101 3,543 1,468 6,605 7,787 3,895 4,794 5,294 5,671
Oregon...................................................... 6,761 6,687 5,935 5,829 6,437 7,437 8,321 9,495 9,390
Pennsylvania................................................ 15,172 42,088 49,100 45,772 47,039 52,269 59,514 61,998 58,646
Puerto Rico................................................. 413 3,736 3,588 3,991 3,696 3,103 3,026 2,811 3,454
Rhode Island................................................ 2,419 3,233 3,092 4,141 4,295 3,100 3,346 4,070 4,830
South Carolina.............................................. 3,343 5,785 10,495 13,954 14,614 15,349 16,764 19,026 20,964
South Dakota................................................ 1,087 1,532 1,887 1,744 1,234 1,262 1,526 1,642 1,809
Tennessee................................................... 4,705 8,336 9,430 13,114 16,659 11,625 12,179 11,391 10,344
Texas....................................................... 5,446 5,652 9,167 13,509 15,447 18,229 20,387 23,075 26,570
Utah........................................................ 3,784 5,209 3,627 3,652 3,333 3,669 3,973 4,033 3,979
Vermont..................................................... 953 2,329 1,984 2,462 2,596 2,826 3,556 4,114 2,594
Virgin Islands.............................................. 232 199 220 184 133 135 165 193 214
Virginia.................................................... 4,729 13,054 10,813 11,854 14,138 16,761 18,679 19,399 45,576
Washington.................................................. 14,860 15,895 18,110 22,921 27,063 23,263 28,618 27,020 29,026
West Virginia............................................... 1,430 2,331 2,107 2,426 2,484 2,622 3,347 4,108 6,185
Wisconsin................................................... 16,868 44,799 26,847 31,438 30,143 30,426 32,693 31,984 32,140
Wyoming..................................................... 294 453 738 1,034 1,197 1,681 2,094 2,146 2,058
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total................................................. 458,439 684,114 608,986 657,585 700,803 755,328 831,172 872,579 1,050,163
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Data not reported for this item or insufficient data reported to perform indicated computation.
\2\ Less than $500.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-16.--AVERAGE NUMBER OF NON-AFDC CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT CASES IN WHICH A COLLECTION WAS MADE, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1978-95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1978 1985 1987 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama........................................... 110 5,023 11,583 16,602 19,971 28,512 33,741 39,586 47,785
Alaska............................................ 2,309 3,205 3,184 3,637 3,947 4,211 4,598 4,997 5,891
Arizona........................................... (\1\) 4,770 4,668 6,740 7,333 9,144 11,107 10,283 21,881
Arkansas.......................................... 764 3,613 5,074 7,241 8,473 11,232 15,088 18,449 23,243
California........................................ 69,696 64,686 77,448 91,029 96,101 101,913 97,597 104,864 155,144
Colorado.......................................... 1,017 3,976 4,537 6,054 7,281 9,008 10,492 11,360 14,524
Connecticut....................................... (\1\) 9,392 9,884 10,606 11,289 13,289 14,441 15,721 17,950
Delaware.......................................... 3,210 4,395 5,073 6,380 6,770 8,058 8,303 9,191 11,575
District of Columbia.............................. 93 1,007 1,264 2,653 4,252 4,964 5,704 6,278 6,904
Florida........................................... 1,200 7,593 25,573 50,995 56,329 66,748 67,948 77,734 96,394
Georgia........................................... 1,207 5,487 14,883 24,992 30,217 34,545 35,419 40,698 50,178
Guam.............................................. (\1\) 65 114 207 378 495 616 803 1,582
Hawaii............................................ (\1\) 352 2,804 6,682 8,103 10,398 15,305 16,299 10,237
Idaho............................................. 455 1,047 2,529 5,540 6,493 7,403 8,689 9,889 11,522
Illinois.......................................... 196 10,030 14,479 21,781 26,184 36,363 36,246 40,744 48,174
Indiana........................................... 450 2,881 12,759 17,990 25,586 27,111 34,855 36,865 39,155
Iowa.............................................. 671 4,913 3,441 10,807 12,400 14,103 16,352 19,266 24,161
Kansas............................................ 210 758 5,260 9,308 11,520 13,855 16,003 18,846 24,991
Kentucky.......................................... 255 3,647 15,549 13,686 17,473 20,489 23,531 28,950 35,072
Louisiana......................................... 6,866 10,636 11,695 14,883 16,739 20,001 24,194 28,146 37,396
Maine............................................. 638 1,496 3,862 5,774 6,425 6,510 5,479 7,630 11,793
Maryland.......................................... 130 26,154 12,685 15,969 27,339 49,380 52,024 54,989 61,259
Massachusetts..................................... (\1\) 0 26,549 27,950 22,921 14,264 24,605 25,899 33,533
Michigan.......................................... (\1\) 88,675 126,187 120,969 115,081 129,461 133,652 141,489 151,518
Minnesota......................................... 2,766 12,615 16,137 23,502 26,712 27,174 35,791 43,272 56,720
Mississippi....................................... 81 1,319 4,348 6,937 7,917 10,077 12,997 16,007 24,355
Missouri.......................................... (\1\) 5,362 14,676 22,802 26,994 32,317 38,492 41,022 47,438
Montana........................................... 444 344 800 1,012 1,448 2,208 2,748 3,750 6,148
Nebraska.......................................... 176 7,874 10,540 13,464 14,748 14,883 15,185 17,771 18,399
Nevada............................................ 4,026 5,360 3,212 4,085 4,451 5,327 6,676 7,819 9,387
New Hampshire..................................... (\1\) 4,939 5,474 5,809 5,260 5,875 7,077 7,870 10,079
New Jersey........................................ 20,000 45,868 51,706 65,947 66,885 68,753 78,789 84,267 89,409
New Mexico........................................ 286 2,249 2,462 4,490 5,360 5,758 5,947 5,849 8,095
New York.......................................... 39,623 63,829 67,460 78,638 83,651 94,031 103,924 108,419 152,556
North Carolina.................................... 1,715 10,137 15,323 22,584 27,632 31,810 37,172 43,884 59,956
North Dakota...................................... 154 266 865 1,427 1,911 2,357 3,320 4,026 4,245
Ohio.............................................. 1,430 10,853 39,114 100,069 101,553 107,806 135,535 149,104 191,748
Oklahoma.......................................... (\1\) 1,968 4,867 8,635 10,509 8,558 8,479 10,707 13,730
Oregon............................................ 17,957 19,331 20,620 23,747 25,657 19,754 21,810 25,063 31,968
Pennsylvania...................................... 49,621 108,498 123,248 140,750 147,885 171,525 182,098 190,671 195,144
Puerto Rico....................................... 710 26,873 30,490 35,346 35,295 36,731 33,075 41,130 45,963
Rhode Island...................................... 57 1,969 2,750 3,559 3,705 3,017 3,060 3,291 4,271
South Carolina.................................... 203 2,777 3,165 4,671 4,896 10,393 25,764 27,771 34,471
South Dakota...................................... 297 502 2,175 3,154 2,739 3,262 3,881 4,607 6,339
Tennessee......................................... 6,360 12,156 14,957 21,649 28,174 31,554 35,358 40,003 53,498
Texas............................................. 2,861 8,833 15,079 26,643 37,741 51,039 65,152 79,037 111,451
Utah.............................................. 400 1,068 4,008 5,437 6,738 8,605 9,704 10,573 13,446
Vermont........................................... 181 393 967 1,459 1,659 1,870 2,433 3,154 3,380
Virgin Islands.................................... 1 1,288 1,252 1,499 1,247 1,301 1,348 1,538 1,655
Virginia.......................................... 38 876 19,273 26,638 31,492 34,242 38,267 46,760 88,500
Washington........................................ 4,822 9,802 13,656 24,331 34,791 46,930 55,788 64,929 74,479
West Virginia..................................... 130 288 1,953 5,246 8,045 7,555 9,513 11,971 22,022
Wisconsin......................................... 4,685 20,288 41,953 63,554 56,769 65,718 70,780 88,601 111,438
Wyoming........................................... 89 77 563 1,669 2,352 2,853 3,275 1,738 3,564
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total....................................... 248,590 653,803 934,177 1,247,228 1,362,821 1,554,740 1,749,427 1,953,580 2,404,716
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Data not reported for this item or insufficient data reported to perform indicated computation.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-17.--SUPPORT ORDERS ESTABLISHED, ENFORCED, AND MODIFIED TO INCLUDE HEALTH INSURANCE, FISCAL YEAR 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Total Percent Total number Total number Percent
number of number with with of orders enforced or with
State orders health health enforced or modified with health
established insurance insurance modified health insurance insurance
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama..................... 12,701 2,458 19.35 377,831 5,083 1.35
Alaska...................... 4,958 4,940 99.64 4,153 3,909 94.12
Arizona..................... 9,576 9,151 95.56 220,023 20,613 9.37
Arkansas.................... 9,128 5,469 59.91 7,332 4,471 60.98
California.................. 155,222 116,747 75.21 743,873 523,254 70.34
Colorado.................... 8,660 7,059 81.51 46,283 19,336 41.78
Connecticut................. 24,693 13,417 54.34 110,604 51,036 46.14
Delaware.................... 3,644 149 4.09 7,481 224 2.99
District of Columbia........ 1,326 32 2.41 6,349 NA 0.00
Florida..................... 13,982 0 0.00 55,702 NA 0.00
Georgia..................... 23,795 23,795 100.00 426,767 9,904 2.32
Guam........................ 673 370 54.98 763 438 57.40
Hawaii...................... 3,981 3,981 100.00 90,219 90,219 100.00
Idaho....................... 3,607 3,607 100.00 81,728 7,353 9.00
Illinois.................... 25,428 7,448 29.29 8,600 2,200 25.58
Indiana..................... 28,097 0 0.00 NA NA 0.00
Iowa........................ 9,983 8,628 86.43 150,623 74,317 49.34
Kansas...................... 17,684 15,092 85.34 150,821 38,076 25.25
Kentucky.................... 29,874 1,830 6.13 36,572 1,401 3.83
Louisiana................... 12,865 12,294 95.56 122,925 83,725 68.11
Maine....................... 3,166 2,055 64.91 13,707 1,454 10.61
Maryland.................... 16,856 12,832 76.13 100,657 10,480 10.41
Massachusetts............... 15,317 10,839 70.76 6,308 1,776 28.15
Michigan.................... 32,354 30,466 94.16 985,731 55,768 5.66
Minnesota................... 19,369 11,232 57.99 47,802 36,972 77.34
Mississippi................. 8,885 0 0.00 11,761 NA 0.00
Missouri.................... 27,142 19,806 72.97 96,087 53,168 55.33
Montana..................... 3,662 2,607 71.19 28,889 1,074 3.72
Nebraska.................... 5,540 3,035 54.78 34,198 856 2.50
Nevada...................... 5,299 4,203 79.32 36,473 1,296 3.55
New Hampshire............... 3,790 2,168 57.20 44,831 5,068 11.30
New Jersey.................. 23,507 14,451 61.48 21,323 9,389 44.03
New Mexico.................. 6,403 4,408 68.84 1,830 1,116 60.98
New York.................... 31,609 12,643 40.00 34,866 13,944 39.99
North Carolina.............. 34,165 23,058 67.49 209,083 3,122 1.49
North Dakota................ 1,456 1,381 94.85 3,960 140 3.54
Ohio........................ 57,613 26,297 45.64 385,379 109,123 28.32
Oklahoma.................... 8,851 5,963 67.37 7,883 1,487 18.86
Oregon...................... 13,577 11,568 85.20 56,486 21,091 37.34
Pennsylvania................ 122,320 79,901 65.32 397,556 228,673 57.52
Puerto Rico................. 11,598 69 0.59 48,491 58 0.12
Rhode Island................ 3,504 2,344 66.89 12,227 6,533 53.43
South Carolina.............. 9,825 6,074 61.82 26,911 13,458 50.01
South Dakota................ 3,185 2,801 87.94 13,805 11,864 85.94
Tennessee................... 11,798 7,178 60.84 33,364 11,014 33.01
Texas....................... 38,588 38,588 100.00 98,109 26,526 27.04
Utah........................ 8,073 6,449 79.88 239,603 166,567 69.52
Vermont..................... 1,490 1,065 71.48 3,493 2,223 63.64
Virgin Islands.............. 486 154 31.69 1,461 264 18.07
Virginia.................... 32,471 18,481 56.92 101,306 14,917 14.72
Washington.................. 32,253 22,772 70.60 483,465 328,594 67.97
West Virginia............... 7,759 3,580 46.14 230,701 25,462 11.04
Wisconsin................... 36,871 8,465 22.96 72,531 38,684 53.33
Wyoming..................... 11,811 4,395 37.21 4,430 701 15.82
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. total............ 1,050,470 637,795 60.72 6,543,366 2,138,421 32.68
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NA--Not available.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-18.--PERCENTAGE OF AFDC PAYMENTS RECOVERED THROUGH CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTIONS, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1979-95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1979 1985 1987 1989 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama.............................................. 8.5 23.2 30.8 31.7 33.7 27.0 23.8 23.1 25.6
Alaska............................................... 1.5 8.3 12.6 13.7 14.6 12.7 11.9 13.6 16.2
Arizona.............................................. 2.0 5.1 3.8 4.4 4.2 5.4 7.1 8.2 9.8
Arkansas............................................. 4.8 17.6 21.0 20.7 23.6 26.5 28.0 28.0 32.5
California........................................... 6.5 6.1 6.0 5.9 6.3 6.5 7.1 7.8 8.3
Colorado............................................. 4.8 9.5 11.4 12.3 13.0 15.0 16.7 19.5 22.7
Connecticut.......................................... 6.5 12.2 12.7 9.5 10.2 10.5 11.2 11.0 15.0
Delaware............................................. 4.4 17.3 21.2 20.3 20.6 19.7 19.8 20.2 22.1
District of Columbia................................. 1.0 3.8 4.7 4.9 4.5 4.7 4.6 4.4 4.7
Florida.............................................. 5.5 11.5 11.9 11.6 11.1 9.9 9.6 10.2 11.3
Georgia.............................................. 4.3 10.4 12.4 14.3 15.4 18.2 20.1 20.3 20.9
Guam................................................. 5.3 9.1 11.9 10.8 32.7 34.6 28.7 18.6 14.5
Hawaii............................................... 2.9 8.9 7.3 8.8 7.4 6.9 6.7 6.6 7.2
Idaho................................................ 8.9 25.0 33.2 35.7 34.7 36.5 35.3 36.3 35.1
Illinois............................................. 1.5 4.8 5.0 5.6 5.7 7.0 6.6 7.1 7.8
Indiana.............................................. 7.2 21.5 23.0 22.4 23.8 24.0 24.5 24.2 26.8
Iowa................................................. 9.0 19.3 19.2 20.1 20.6 23.2 24.3 26.3 30.4
Kansas............................................... 5.0 14.1 13.4 15.9 17.8 19.4 19.7 21.8 25.9
Kentucky............................................. 3.8 8.5 12.0 12.4 15.0 18.8 20.0 21.0 22.9
Louisiana............................................ 5.2 9.1 10.5 11.1 12.4 14.2 15.3 16.1 18.7
Maine................................................ 7.3 20.6 26.1 22.9 21.5 18.8 24.5 28.3 30.4
Maryland............................................. 6.1 11.2 13.0 14.5 11.4 14.2 16.9 15.8 15.3
Massachusetts........................................ 6.6 10.7 12.0 11.8 10.4 10.5 11.4 11.6 12.8
Michigan............................................. 9.0 12.5 13.0 13.9 15.1 15.7 16.6 17.7 18.7
Minnesota............................................ 7.8 12.7 14.2 14.4 14.6 16.3 17.3 19.2 23.0
Mississippi.......................................... 2.9 9.4 13.7 16.8 22.3 24.2 24.9 28.0 29.3
Missouri............................................. 2.8 12.0 15.0 17.8 15.6 19.0 18.9 20.1 21.0
Montana.............................................. 4.4 8.6 9.9 11.1 12.9 16.0 15.0 14.2 17.3
Nebraska............................................. 5.4 11.5 12.9 13.0 13.2 16.0 16.9 18.1 21.4
Nevada............................................... 6.3 16.4 12.4 12.2 14.1 17.1 16.6 15.7 15.3
New Hampshire........................................ 9.4 15.2 12.4 11.3 10.1 12.3 14.4 16.0 19.4
New Jersey........................................... 5.9 12.5 14.4 14.0 16.4 16.5 16.4 16.9 18.3
New Mexico........................................... 3.4 7.4 9.4 9.2 7.8 8.0 11.6 9.7 6.0
New York............................................. 3.5 5.0 5.6 6.4 6.7 7.2 7.0 6.7 6.9
North Carolina....................................... 5.6 17.4 18.9 18.8 18.4 19.6 20.5 22.4 23.1
North Dakota......................................... 9.6 16.8 17.4 21.0 23.4 24.0 24.1 25.4 28.9
Ohio................................................. 4.8 10.1 9.9 10.0 10.3 11.7 12.2 13.4 15.5
Oklahoma............................................. 1.6 6.4 8.0 9.0 9.9 10.7 11.1 12.8 14.9
Oregon............................................... 9.0 13.0 13.0 13.5 13.5 12.5 13.4 14.3 15.0
Pennsylvania......................................... 4.6 11.0 13.2 12.6 13.7 14.0 13.7 13.6 14.5
Puerto Rico.......................................... 0.7 2.7 2.3 2.4 2.1 1.8 1.7 1.9 3.5
Rhode Island......................................... 6.1 7.6 8.9 10.4 9.2 10.8 11.6 12.6 13.9
South Carolina....................................... 5.4 13.1 15.9 16.8 16.8 17.9 21.1 23.6 26.1
South Dakota......................................... 6.5 14.4 17.9 17.1 18.1 18.8 19.5 23.2 27.4
Tennessee............................................ 5.0 10.3 14.1 13.7 14.3 11.2 15.7 15.9 23.3
Texas................................................ 5.4 6.2 9.4 9.5 10.2 11.8 12.9 14.5 17.6
Utah................................................. 13.7 19.6 22.1 23.4 23.2 25.6 26.2 28.3 29.7
Vermont.............................................. 4.1 11.1 13.4 12.7 13.0 12.7 14.7 14.6 17.7
Virgin Islands....................................... 8.5 8.3 7.9 7.3 7.1 8.5 10.2 10.6 8.7
Virginia............................................. 6.3 9.0 13.5 15.7 17.2 17.3 17.3 16.2 21.8
Washington........................................... 12.5 10.9 14.4 17.1 18.1 20.0 20.8 21.1 22.4
West Virginia........................................ 2.6 7.8 6.1 5.1 8.1 10.6 18.2 13.8 15.1
Wisconsin............................................ 9.5 12.4 15.4 15.5 15.7 16.2 17.0 21.6 27.3
Wyoming.............................................. 5.6 8.2 10.0 13.5 13.3 14.3 17.0 20.7 25.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total.......................................... 5.8 9.1 10.0 10.3 10.7 11.4 12.0 12.5 13.6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Payments to AFDC Unemployed Parent (UP) families have been excluded from the maintenance assistance payments totals in those States having AFDC-
UP programs.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-19.--FEDERAL INCOME TAX REFUND OFFSET PROGRAM COLLECTIONS, FISCAL YEARS 1983-95
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1983 1987 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama......................... 1,555 5,135 7,450 8,009 8,827 20,586 17,321 18,688
Alaska.......................... 212 891 995 1,208 1,387 1,711 1,357 2,156
Arizona......................... 385 2,049 2,592 2,605 2,876 4,007 8,049 7,538
Arkansas........................ 1,104 3,770 4,490 4,669 5,575 7,106 6,631 7,515
California...................... 35,034 46,287 50,472 57,624 57,098 67,569 60,173 86,508
Colorado........................ 3,016 3,020 4,947 5,604 6,179 7,614 7,430 9,283
Connecticut..................... 4,455 6,140 12,132 9,907 9,250 10,190 8,863 10,823
Delaware........................ 166 1,319 1,812 1,966 2,467 2,683 2,223 2,626
District of Columbia............ 567 779 1,202 1,942 1,606 1,788 1,646 1,992
Florida......................... 1,980 7,318 21,294 21,038 24,880 31,569 29,354 38,045
Georgia......................... 1,526 7,258 11,566 13,032 15,693 22,016 21,778 30,103
Guam............................ 13 44 26 13 11 51 42 70
Hawaii.......................... 817 1,122 1,511 1,573 1,976 2,328 3,496 3,589
Idaho........................... 1,183 1,594 1,959 2,173 2,270 2,690 2,473 3,205
Illinois........................ 4,525 15,415 13,887 19,307 18,876 26,631 19,924 28,836
Indiana......................... 4,940 11,390 15,642 15,860 16,853 21,169 18,882 23,429
Iowa............................ 5,526 7,798 8,990 8,828 9,439 11,240 9,941 13,055
Kansas.......................... 2,525 3,704 4,947 5,300 6,101 7,525 6,782 9,196
Kentucky........................ 1,165 3,262 6,812 6,680 7,891 12,919 11,390 14,121
Louisiana....................... 1,536 4,722 5,797 6,582 6,519 8,438 9,182 13,934
Maine........................... 1,844 3,377 4,866 5,383 4,925 5,477 4,611 6,103
Maryland........................ 5,688 9,646 17,039 14,343 14,182 15,542 14,867 17,936
Massachusetts................... 3,325 5,269 10,101 11,899 10,936 13,077 10,841 9,997
Michigan........................ 18,250 25,893 30,246 29,854 32,776 44,968 42,748 49,346
Minnesota....................... 5,576 6,762 7,936 8,096 8,831 9,904 8,734 10,575
Mississippi..................... 1,019 2,252 4,147 4,958 6,392 8,270 8,389 10,765
Missouri........................ 4,289 8,482 12,438 14,205 10,189 17,711 15,498 19,546
Montana......................... 431 1,209 1,366 1,301 1,374 1,636 1,597 1,794
Nebraska........................ 502 1,395 2,598 2,485 2,548 3,121 3,068 3,671
Nevada.......................... 354 433 630 768 1,363 2,449 2,184 3,127
New Hampshire................... 757 1,284 1,137 1,177 1,350 2,028 1,906 2,869
New Jersey...................... 9,458 14,268 16,201 16,171 18,266 20,132 17,253 21,309
New Mexico...................... 533 2,278 2,279 2,585 2,863 3,259 2,905 3,907
New York........................ 9,945 27,991 23,472 24,763 31,307 33,734 29,445 35,960
North Carolina.................. 4,235 7,229 11,359 11,270 12,718 16,410 16,971 21,154
North Dakota.................... 352 848 773 1,302 1,501 1,767 1,586 2,303
Ohio............................ 2,886 11,186 14,346 16,514 21,027 27,476 27,305 46,843
Oklahoma........................ 703 2,218 4,197 4,647 5,803 7,575 6,752 9,148
Oregon.......................... 3,782 4,863 5,113 5,381 5,622 6,259 5,364 7,997
Pennsylvania.................... 6,112 17,123 21,332 24,354 27,946 32,560 27,636 36,956
Puerto Rico..................... 2 13 47 6 63 231 208 287
Rhode Island.................... 838 880 1,401 1,548 1,522 1,799 1,359 1,857
South Carolina.................. 368 1,789 2,788 3,233 3,449 4,678 5,091 6,296
South Dakota.................... 374 998 1,465 1,498 1,648 2,110 1,925 2,465
Tennessee....................... 642 3,025 7,110 7,539 8,341 16,033 12,126 16,865
Texas........................... 3,906 11,316 17,934 19,926 24,133 34,346 35,816 54,142
Utah............................ 2,540 2,991 3,730 4,066 4,297 5,604 5,184 6,270
Vermont......................... 611 887 1,154 1,017 1,074 1,294 1,031 1,633
Virgin Islands.................. ........ 37 34 7 25 44 62 81
Virginia........................ 1,674 6,840 8,913 9,761 10,298 12,594 12,108 16,898
Washington...................... 4,278 10,510 12,537 13,732 13,957 17,417 16,447 19,506
West Virginia................... 1,038 2,013 2,944 3,066 3,265 3,705 3,378 7,221
Wisconsin....................... 6,266 10,029 12,902 13,290 14,384 17,486 17,117 22,800
Wyoming......................... 222 503 534 684 1,131 1,190 888 1,977
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nationwide total.......... 175,021 338,853 443,594 474,748 515,279 661,711 609,336 803,952
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-20.--TOTAL CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTIONS PER DOLLAR OF TOTAL ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENDITURES, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1978-95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal year
State -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1978 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama....................................................... .75 2.45 2.69 2.50 2.46 2.78 2.68 3.11 3.27 2.24
Alaska........................................................ 3.19 2.61 3.05 3.46 4.06 4.14 3.64 3.92 3.71 2.93
Arizona....................................................... .88 1.46 2.21 2.11 1.84 1.49 1.54 1.57 1.79 1.48
Arkansas...................................................... 1.00 2.62 2.94 2.94 3.38 2.80 3.00 3.15 3.20 2.75
California.................................................... 2.15 2.37 2.52 2.75 2.66 2.59 2.63 2.59 2.54 2.17
Colorado...................................................... 1.78 1.89 1.90 1.99 2.21 2.82 3.22 2.70 2.47 2.54
Connecticut................................................... 4.20 3.49 2.91 2.73 2.76 2.46 2.73 2.97 3.19 2.88
Delaware...................................................... 7.14 2.46 3.07 2.62 3.01 3.13 2.87 2.88 2.39 2.04
District of Columbia.......................................... .73 .92 .97 1.21 1.33 1.78 1.88 2.33 2.51 2.03
Florida....................................................... 1.20 2.12 1.98 2.28 2.58 2.66 2.86 3.03 3.78 3.53
Georgia....................................................... 2.22 2.59 3.16 2.88 3.06 3.06 3.61 4.26 4.47 3.50
Guam.......................................................... ....... 1.39 1.53 1.62 1.28 1.24 1.98 1.87 1.89 1.33
Hawaii........................................................ 1.71 2.26 3.10 3.62 3.62 3.64 4.06 3.94 3.79 2.36
Idaho......................................................... 2.10 3.58 4.06 3.79 3.95 4.02 3.21 3.62 3.43 2.39
Illinois...................................................... 2.10 2.40 2.51 2.68 2.77 2.61 2.63 2.90 2.36 2.23
Indiana....................................................... 2.42 4.82 5.22 5.49 5.34 6.15 7.27 6.56 6.45 5.18
Iowa.......................................................... 3.49 6.77 6.12 6.36 5.66 4.99 5.02 5.79 5.14 4.72
Kansas........................................................ 3.01 2.15 2.58 2.51 2.00 2.76 3.43 3.73 2.57 1.69
Kentucky...................................................... 1.14 2.52 2.59 2.44 2.63 2.55 2.33 2.97 3.05 3.21
Louisiana..................................................... 1.82 1.99 2.28 2.60 2.85 3.12 2.51 2.74 3.19 3.37
Maine......................................................... 3.40 3.74 3.75 4.01 4.14 3.82 3.06 2.84 3.39 4.28
Maryland...................................................... 2.14 3.77 3.02 3.31 3.36 3.80 3.80 4.49 4.56 4.07
Massachusetts................................................. 5.12 3.50 3.46 4.09 3.24 3.80 3.41 4.18 4.30 3.54
Michigan...................................................... 9.50 8.33 9.52 8.80 8.58 7.83 8.07 8.20 8.43 7.20
Minnesota..................................................... 2.15 3.02 3.51 3.59 3.65 3.58 3.74 4.27 4.20 3.96
Mississippi................................................... .87 2.29 3.36 3.06 2.23 1.56 1.76 2.22 2.20 2.16
Missouri...................................................... .89 3.89 4.55 4.22 4.45 4.71 4.75 4.88 4.30 3.41
Montana....................................................... 1.58 2.59 3.16 2.97 4.21 2.74 2.78 2.38 2.76 2.87
Nebraska...................................................... 2.10 5.44 5.20 5.02 4.69 4.48 3.83 3.54 4.17 3.44
Nevada........................................................ 1.83 2.10 2.30 1.95 2.22 2.12 2.52 3.06 2.39 2.08
New Hampshire................................................. 4.05 4.39 5.33 4.93 3.18 3.71 2.86 3.26 2.87 2.50
New Jersey.................................................... 4.16 4.64 4.47 4.12 3.85 3.66 3.49 4.02 4.02 6.13
New Mexico.................................................... 1.17 2.27 1.99 1.76 1.96 2.00 2.00 2.30 3.08 1.54
New York...................................................... 1.75 1.83 1.98 2.36 2.74 2.55 2.81 3.22 3.10 3.39
North Carolina................................................ 1.50 3.26 3.83 3.32 3.20 3.18 3.15 3.20 3.20 2.40
North Dakota.................................................. 1.83 2.46 2.65 3.14 3.31 3.62 3.59 3.93 4.05 4.13
Ohio.......................................................... 2.50 4.41 5.65 10.83 6.07 7.21 6.01 5.35 5.48 5.63
Oklahoma...................................................... .76 1.78 2.22 2.48 2.28 2.29 2.41 2.69 3.13 2.70
Oregon........................................................ 9.48 4.47 4.03 4.27 4.45 4.49 4.48 5.10 4.95 4.81
Pennsylvania.................................................. 9.14 7.78 7.56 8.52 8.97 8.71 8.03 9.27 9.09 8.15
Puerto Rico................................................... .92 14.02 18.93 17.60 13.61 7.84 15.68 10.43 11.73 3.96
Rhode Island.................................................. 3.51 3.90 3.31 3.65 3.67 2.52 2.22 2.31 4.35 3.45
South Carolina................................................ 2.38 2.37 3.01 3.23 3.01 2.60 3.01 3.59 3.88 2.84
South Dakota.................................................. .99 2.74 2.96 3.50 3.99 3.96 4.43 4.82 4.90 5.27
Tennessee..................................................... 2.49 3.31 3.07 4.09 3.57 4.28 4.27 3.87 5.42 3.75
Texas......................................................... .74 2.01 2.60 2.81 2.41 1.93 2.50 2.53 2.31 3.01
Utah.......................................................... 1.99 2.21 2.39 2.86 2.92 3.09 2.80 3.08 2.86 1.96
Vermont....................................................... 2.24 2.34 2.95 3.31 2.93 3.61 3.77 2.82 3.06 2.69
Virgin Islands................................................ .40 2.14 4.13 4.16 3.11 4.18 2.07 4.10 4.50 0.86
Virginia...................................................... .72 1.57 2.41 2.39 3.03 2.35 3.13 2.91 3.09 3.63
Washington.................................................... 2.96 2.42 2.56 2.48 2.66 3.13 3.41 3.29 3.42 3.35
West Virginia................................................. .74 1.98 2.00 2.16 2.95 2.75 2.55 2.98 2.77 3.24
Wisconsin..................................................... 3.80 4.78 6.20 6.01 6.18 5.76 6.68 6.83 7.15 6.09
Wyoming....................................................... 3.18 3.27 4.64 4.91 3.50 3.37 3.50 4.87 2.34 1.76
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. ratio.............................................. 3.35 3.45 3.68 3.94 3.85 3.75 3.82 3.99 3.98 3.60
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-21.--NUMBER OF PATERNITIES ESTABLISHED, SELECTED FISCAL YEARS 1979-95
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1979 1987 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama......................... 6,161 6,998 7,839 6,517 6,612 7,942 10,779 7,816
Alaska.......................... 3 364 797 767 673 906 1,070 1,576
Arizona......................... 154 1,009 1,327 1,237 2,674 3,056 5,007 11,608
Arkansas........................ 2,586 5,326 4,453 3,191 4,703 5,175 6,580 8,294
California...................... 19,364 28,570 35,193 41,065 56,912 65,062 77,324 129,593
Colorado........................ 1,046 1,291 1,939 1,864 2,887 4,135 5,258 6,201
Connecticut..................... 3,029 3,908 3,888 4,499 5,309 6,196 5,368 7,578
Delaware........................ 205 1,867 1,641 801 728 1,573 1,395 2,292
District of Columbia............ 386 1,021 2,079 2,791 3,895 2,792 2,884 1,683
Florida......................... 7,078 12,136 13,399 19,534 17,907 16,119 10,879 13,010
Georgia......................... 3,642 14,112 18,198 24,615 28,015 30,181 29,329 13,978
Guam............................ NA 122 109 563 884 642 440 866
Hawaii.......................... 854 1,061 1,295 1,843 1,672 1,419 1,746 1,493
Idaho........................... 287 384 1,100 1,310 1,551 1,722 1,509 2,079
Illinois........................ 3,025 20,848 29,926 25,496 21,157 18,900 19,017 22,236
Indiana......................... 1,644 3,570 4,943 5,309 6,291 5,631 4,950 4,202
Iowa............................ 575 1,664 1,980 3,045 1,904 4,416 4,952 4,378
Kansas.......................... 696 1,119 2,101 3,644 3,125 3,198 4,445 10,677
Kentucky........................ 784 3,881 4,498 6,092 6,816 7,951 7,979 8,950
Louisiana....................... 1,304 2,926 4,451 5,525 11,098 11,764 13,272 9,299
Maine........................... 382 951 1,609 1,381 1,376 3,189 1,370 1,704
Maryland........................ 13,307 6,671 9,995 7,538 12,081 11,259 9,993 9,052
Massachusetts................... 2,096 7,025 6,194 6,339 5,742 8,195 6,234 10,862
Michigan........................ 7,529 18,274 23,142 25,574 27,955 29,087 28,076 22,471
Minnesota....................... 1,786 3,856 6,098 5,661 7,695 5,348 3,749 8,936
Mississippi..................... 932 1,824 7,929 10,740 11,950 8,978 8,588 12,734
Missouri........................ NA 14,308 11,146 16,242 21,976 23,982 24,292 24,679
Montana......................... 92 179 388 429 677 1,155 413 1,368
Nebraska........................ NA 710 759 885 1,280 1,628 2,019 4,329
Nevada.......................... 233 531 664 1,033 1,655 1,702 1,602 1,797
New Hampshire................... 35 195 518 614 645 580 604 722
New Jersey...................... 8,242 13,938 13,182 12,243 10,595 10,314 7,453 13,239
New Mexico...................... 322 412 1,571 1,992 1,601 1,591 2,491 3,574
New York........................ 17,503 18,239 18,056 20,492 30,197 34,434 42,748 36,474
North Carolina.................. 6,592 9,916 11,663 14,504 18,186 19,308 21,371 25,429
North Dakota.................... 293 1,134 820 784 935 1,446 1,386 906
Ohio............................ 4,808 9,133 11,637 15,823 20,857 23,672 28,151 32,785
Oklahoma........................ 43 512 1,361 2,710 4,939 2,721 2,764 4,525
Oregon.......................... 1,521 1,902 3,131 4,081 3,836 4,942 5,830 5,159
Pennsylvania.................... 4,450 15,277 18,921 20,231 23,063 24,239 23,246 27,642
Puerto Rico..................... 22 6 144 216 264 198 206 204
Rhode Island.................... 347 601 673 868 764 1,425 2,001 3,971
South Carolina.................. 1,378 3,994 5,243 5,273 6,066 6,996 8,331 8,038
South Dakota.................... 60 552 504 509 687 916 1,333 1,160
Tennessee....................... 5,003 7,666 9,647 8,976 10,309 10,902 11,463 14,358
Texas........................... 202 684 6,465 12,623 19,627 24,890 30,002 38,516
Utah............................ 487 1,292 1,801 2,087 2,484 2,957 3,496 4,287
Vermont......................... 44 1,091 468 533 438 800 1,065 949
Virgin Islands.................. 4 235 270 160 215 344 492 485
Virginia........................ 1,452 2,667 8,471 13,647 15,971 18,038 21,506 26,174
Washington...................... 656 4,066 5,762 6,985 8,601 10,540 12,539 13,608
West Virginia................... 156 288 820 997 1,324 2,373 2,790 7,077
Wisconsin....................... 4,803 8,750 8,695 10,808 12,931 15,435 17,678 20,982
Wyoming......................... 44 105 340 618 370 3,493 3,670 4,829
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total..................... 137,645 269,161 339,243 393,304 472,105 515,857 553,135 660,834
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NA--Not available.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-22.--OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BIRTHS AND CHILD SUPPORT PATERNITIES ESTABLISHED, FISCAL YEARS 1987-93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Births to unmarried women Paternities/births (percent)
State ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1987 1989 1990 1991 1993 1987 1989 1990 1991 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama................................................... 15,955 18,640 19,131 20,000 20,680 43.9 42.1 34.1 33.05 52.1
Alaska.................................................... 2,564 2,869 3,113 3,148 3,101 14.2 27.8 24.6 21.3 34.5
Arizona................................................... 17,227 20,708 22,532 23,899 26,151 5.9 6.4 5.5 11.19 19.2
Arkansas.................................................. 8,498 9,944 10,713 10,601 10,878 62.7 44.8 29.8 44.3 60.5
California................................................ 136,785 171,189 193,559 204,229 206,376 20.9 20.6 21.2 27.8 37.4
Colorado.................................................. 10,171 10,787 11,374 12,684 13,373 12.7 18.0 16.4 22.7 39.3
Connecticut............................................... 11,045 13,005 13,330 13,581 13,919 35.4 29.9 33.8 39.1 38.6
Delaware.................................................. 2,742 3,125 3,222 3,559 3,577 68.1 52.5 24.9 20.5 53.8
District of Columbia...................................... 6,094 7,580 7,692 7,806 7,211 16.8 27.4 36.3 49.9 40.0
Florida................................................... 48,200 58,305 63,169 64,101 67,431 25.2 23.0 30.9 27.9 16.1
Georgia................................................... 28,647 34,926 36,979 38,116 39,575 49.3 52.1 66.6 73.5 74.1
Hawaii.................................................... 3,968 4,609 5,088 5,195 5,328 26.7 28.1 36.2 32.2 32.8
Idaho..................................................... 2,073 2,561 2,738 2,924 3,268 18.5 43.0 47.8 53.0 46.2
Illinois.................................................. 50,677 58,867 62,148 63,225 65,130 41.1 50.8 41.0 33.5 29.2
Indiana................................................... 17,260 19,898 22,562 24,294 25,844 20.7 24.8 23.5 25.9 19.2
Iowa...................................................... 6,147 7,575 8,282 8,657 9,297 27.1 26.1 36.8 22.0 53.3
Kansas.................................................... 6,633 7,577 8,397 8,746 9,696 16.9 27.7 43.4 35.7 45.8
Kentucky.................................................. 10,658 12,048 12,829 13,796 14,401 36.4 37.3 47.5 49.4 55.4
Louisiana................................................. 23,594 25,692 26,601 27,694 29,179 12.4 17.3 20.8 40.0 45.5
Maine..................................................... 3,338 3,806 3,931 4,180 4,061 28.5 42.3 35.1 32.9 33.7
Maryland.................................................. 22,866 22,607 23,789 24,292 24,335 29.2 44.2 31.7 49.7 41.1
Massachusetts............................................. 17,616 21,798 22,886 22,873 22,380 39.9 28.4 27.7 25.1 23.9
Michigan.................................................. 28,724 36,441 40,289 40,941 36,326 63.6 63.5 63.5 68.3 77.3
Minnesota................................................. 11,114 13,142 14,192 14,984 15,099 34.7 46.4 39.9 51.4 24.8
Mississippi............................................... 14,499 16,958 17,627 18,317 18,718 12.6 46.8 60.9 65.2 45.9
Missouri.................................................. 17,823 21,123 22,643 23,736 24,353 80.3 52.8 71.7 92.6 99.8
Montana................................................... 2,379 2,539 2,757 2,898 3,104 7.5 15.3 15.6 23.4 13.3
Nebraska.................................................. 4,006 4,662 5,056 5,181 5,449 17.7 16.3 17.5 24.7 38.2
Nevada.................................................... 2,740 4,607 5,480 7,016 7,614 19.4 18.4 14.4 18.9 21.0
New Hampshire............................................. 2,511 2,797 2,967 2,996 3,179 7.8 18.5 20.7 21.5 19.0
New Jersey................................................ 26,647 29,364 29,756 31,972 31,949 52.3 45.6 44.9 41.1 23.3
New Mexico................................................ 8,067 9,447 9,704 10,445 11,526 5.1 16.6 20.5 15.3 21.6
New York.................................................. 80,939 92,996 98,110 99,738 105,101 22.5 19.4 20.9 30.3 41.1
North Carolina............................................ 23,262 28,315 30,718 32,340 32,586 42.6 41.2 47.2 56.2 65.6
North Dakota.............................................. 1,429 1,615 1,699 1,952 1,999 79.4 50.8 46.1 47.9 69.3
Ohio...................................................... 39,237 45,921 48,289 50,826 52,385 23.3 19.7 25.3 32.8 55.6
Oklahoma.................................................. 9,892 11,258 11,998 12,973 13,441 5.2 12.1 22.6 38.1 20.6
Oregon.................................................... 8,672 10,436 11,041 11,324 11,730 21.9 30.0 37.0 33.9 49.7
Pennsylvania.............................................. 41,143 47,093 49,258 51,360 51,783 37.1 40.2 41.1 44.9 44.9
Rhode Island.............................................. 3,064 3,684 3,997 4,073 4,436 19.6 18.3 21.7 18.8 45.1
South Carolina............................................ 15,333 18,116 19,148 20,000 19,359 26.1 28.9 27.5 30.3 43.0
South Dakota.............................................. 2,225 2,415 2,515 2,720 2,968 24.8 20.9 20.2 25.3 44.9
Tennessee................................................. 17,897 21,281 22,662 24,026 24,556 42.8 45.3 39.6 42.9 46.7
Texas..................................................... 57,464 60,303 55,435 56,528 54,670 1.2 10.7 22.8 34.7 54.9
Utah...................................................... 3,929 4,504 4,910 5,196 5,744 32.9 40.0 42.5 47.8 60.9
Vermont................................................... 1,459 1,685 1,666 1,811 1,805 74.8 27.8 32.0 24.2 59.0
Virginia.................................................. 20,562 24,410 25,874 27,125 27,532 1.3 34.7 52.7 58.9 78.1
Washington................................................ 14,629 17,638 18,746 19,861 20,670 27.8 32.7 37.3 43.3 60.7
West Virginia............................................. 4,722 5,212 5,743 6,040 6,328 6.1 15.7 17.4 21.9 44.1
Wisconsin................................................. 14,698 16,815 17,656 18,235 18,882 59.5 51.7 61.2 70.9 93.6
Wyoming................................................... 1,189 1,276 1,383 1,546 1,689 8.8 26.7 44.7 23.9 217.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. total.......................................... 933,013 1,094,169 1,165,384 1,213,769 1,240,172 28.8 31.0 33.7 38.8 44.6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and National Center for Health Statistics (1995 and previous
years).
TABLE 9-23.--STATE SHARE OF PROGRAM SAVINGS FOR FISCAL YEARS 1989-95
[In thousands of dollars]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama............................ 380 -518 -1,982 -3,053 -2,529 -6,319 -8,672
Alaska............................. 2,264 2,469 2,982 3,431 3,797 4,278 4,201
Arizona............................ -1,219 -2,899 -3,125 -3,320 -4,242 -4,761 -6,804
Arkansas........................... 1,574 1,013 1,830 1,009 530 -283 -135
California......................... 79,779 76,552 88,584 98,465 101,406 115,539 110,774
Colorado........................... 4,552 4,991 5,954 5,661 6,064 7,107 7,490
Connecticut........................ 11,330 7,310 10,332 11,711 13,396 12,523 5,671
Delaware........................... 797 812 923 902 455 312 -644
District of Columbia............... -3,145 -89 -574 144 757 -272 -585
Florida............................ 5,601 2,932 7,179 11,482 14,368 14,863 11,797
Georgia............................ 2,861 1,299 3,930 7,937 12,856 13,099 10,801
Guam............................... -87 -227 -293 -450 -305 -375 -919
Hawaii............................. 1,648 1,622 1,502 1,655 1,873 1,618 539
Idaho.............................. 1,029 895 751 955 922 720 665
Illinois........................... 10,935 5,159 5,785 9,767 3,716 3,711 3,965
Indiana............................ 14,027 11,731 16,134 20,359 20,257 22,131 18,262
Iowa............................... 11,767 11,631 10,840 11,765 11,000 12,048 12,560
Kansas............................. 1,170 2,229 3,694 4,041 3,711 3,142 -3,222
Kentucky........................... 207 207 -475 1,958 3,467 5,104 3,696
Louisiana.......................... 696 150 -1,049 -1,845 -1,241 -1,270 -2,098
Maine.............................. 5,236 4,229 3,852 3,890 5,877 5,509 6,359
Maryland........................... 6,860 8,631 6,120 10,366 12,037 8,926 4,819
Massachusetts...................... 23,373 23,391 21,789 25,917 29,957 22,670 25,468
Michigan........................... 57,413 54,088 58,032 53,107 52,078 53,216 49,500
Minnesota.......................... 13,969 12,083 11,468 12,377 12,274 11,880 11,950
Mississippi........................ -232 -2,987 -2,549 -1,243 -1,065 -2,843 -3,336
Missouri........................... 8,046 9,002 7,846 11,772 10,303 10,566 7,695
Montana............................ 1,093 769 454 532 618 37,868 37,431
Nebraska........................... -252 -572 -582 -2,093 -1,054 -574 -1,270
Nevada............................. -32 -417 -334 608 -172 604 -902
New Hampshire...................... 362 185 271 826 443 1,165 1,157
New Jersey......................... 15,081 6,836 9,100 13,551 11,876 13,809 24,571
New Mexico......................... 305 -148 -361 -224 1,278 456 -1,083
New York........................... 24,201 22,865 30,313 41,091 41,790 46,036 43,880
North Carolina..................... 5,857 3,598 4,257 6,343 6,962 8,504 2,853
North Dakota....................... 955 1,074 1,231 973 989 888 788
Ohio............................... 21,558 12,040 6,054 445 3,453 6,800 5,761
Oklahoma........................... 705 69 380 1,110 2,457 2,412 2,241
Oregon............................. 3,703 2,658 3,358 4,863 5,935 8,029 5,548
Pennsylvania....................... 22,018 19,846 21,226 27,102 29,234 33,738 30,971
Puerto Rico........................ -1,075 -3,121 -2,165 -2,008 -2,171 -3,073 -5,161
Rhode Island....................... 2,999 3,439 3,940 4,375 5,427 5,466 6,142
South Carolina..................... 490 -1,639 91 437 1,309 1,049 191
South Dakota....................... 969 1,254 820 672 1,048 967 1,338
Tennessee.......................... 1,278 3,432 5,989 1,578 5,915 5,408 7,519
Texas.............................. 2,163 -4,832 -4,774 -6,111 13,969 -12,335 -6,212
Utah............................... 1,362 1,111 892 980 343 181 -1,526
Vermont............................ 1,440 1,957 1,918 1,621 2,066 1,175 1,741
Virgin Islands..................... -223 -184 -459 -227 -256 -305 -885
Virginia........................... 2,567 -1,113 4,292 4,324 6,347 5,109 7,348
Washington......................... 15,386 14,053 22,038 19,695 24,875 29,978 25,869
West Virginia...................... -59 -1,214 -722 -1,047 16 -2,038 -2,484
Wisconsin.......................... 21,306 18,451 16,740 15,553 15,386 15,757 12,695
Wyoming............................ 574 363 340 589 226 159 86
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. total................... 403,400 338,469 384,691 433,317 462,092 482,243 431,013
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note.--Numbers may not sum to total due to rounding.
Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
TABLE 9-24.--STATES USING THE INCOME SHARES AND PERCENTAGE OF INCOME
APPROACHES TO ESTABLISHING CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Income shares
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama Maine Oklahoma
Arizona Maryland Oregon
California Michigan Pennsylvania
Colorado Missouri Rhode Island
Florida Montana South Carolina
Idaho Nebraska South Dakota
Indiana New Jersey Utah
Iowa New Mexico Vermont
Kansas North Carolina Virginia
Kentucky Ohio Washington
Louisiana
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percentage of income
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska New Hampshire Georgia
Arkansas North Dakota Mississippi
Connecticut Tennessee Nevada
Illinois Texas New York
Minnesota Wyoming Wisconsin
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Garfinkel, McLanahan & Robins (1994).
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