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Annual Support Payments Top $2,900, Census Bureau Reports
Among the 7.2 million people who paid support to a member of another household
in 1997, the median amount of such financial assistance was $2,940 a year,
according to a report released today by the Commerce Department's Census Bureau.
"Because many providers assisted more than one recipient, the average
amount going to a single recipient was considerably less than $2,900," said Wil
Masumura, author of Who's Helping Out? Financial Support Networks Among American
Households: 1997[pdf]. "The amounts and percentages varied by the characteristics of
both providers and recipients."
Men paid about $3,000 in support in 1997, while women paid slightly more
than half as much.
Hispanics (who may be of any race) supported more recipients (an average of
1.6 persons) than did African Americans (1.5) and non-Hispanic Whites (1.4).
The report covers all monetary assistance regularly furnished by households
to individuals in separate households, particularly child support, and does not
cover sporadic financial aid or nonmonetary support such as gifts or services.
Other highlights from the report:
- More than three-quarters (78 percent) of all recipients of regular
financial support were children of the support providers, compared with
two-thirds (66 percent) in 1988, the last time this report was issued.
- In 1988 and 1997, about 4 percent of the adult population provided
regular financial support to designated individuals outside their
household.
- In both years, regular financial-assistance providers were found
proportionally more often among Hispanics than among non-Hispanic Whites
or African Americans.
- A gender gap among providers was found in both 1988 and 1997. Just as women
provided substantially less monetary support than men, considerably fewer
women than men provided any regular financial assistance at all.
- In 1988 and 1997, those in the prime working-age bracket of 25 to 44 had
the highest percentage of support providers among all age brackets.
- As expected, in 1988 and 1997, the divorced and separated were represented
proportionally much more often than people of other marital statuses.
The report uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation.
Statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error.
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