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1991.11.20 :  Child Support Collections

Contact:  Don Collins (202) 245-2760
November 20, 1991

       HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, M.D., today announced that $6 billion was
collected for child support in fiscal year 1990 -- an increase of 15 percent or $769
million over 1989 and a new record for the national child support enforcement
program.
       The child support enforcement program, located in HHS' Administration for
Children and Families, is a joint federal/state effort to locate absent parents, establish
paternity when necessary and establish and enforce child support orders.
       "A $769 million increase in child support collections is significant," said
Secretary Sullivan in releasing HHS' 15th Annual Report to Congress on Child Support
Enforcement.  "We are now beginning to realize a larger scale of benefits as a result
of the Family Support Act which required improvements in the child support
enforcement program." 
       CSE changes currently in effect and changes scheduled to be phased in by
October 1995 include immediate wage withholding as part of support orders,
mandatory use of state guidelines for establishing the amounts of support orders and
specific time frames for providing services to child support applicants and recipients.
       In fiscal year 1990, paternity was established for nearly 400,000 children,
clearing the way for the establishment of support orders and other benefits from their
fathers.
       The Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), which assists states in locating
non-custodial parents and their places of employment, provided addresses and asset
information on 79 percent of the more than 3 million processed requests to help
establish and enforce child support orders.In fiscal year 1990, the CSE program
established just over a million support orders, a 9 percent increase over the previous
year.
       "Single parenting, whether from divorce, separation or out-of-wedlock birth
can have severe financial consequences," said 
Jo Anne B. Barnhart, assistant secretary for children and families and director of the
national child support enforcement program.  "We must continue to ensure both
parents accept responsibility for their children and provide the financial support our
nation's children deserve."
       Over the past 16 years, the child support enforcement program, established
in 1975 under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, has collected almost $39 billion
in support payments.


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