IV. CHILD SUPPORT COLLECTIONS

The goal of the nation's child support enforcement program is to ensure that children are financially supported by both their parents. PRWORA provides strong measures for ensuring that children receive this support.

In 1997, the number of child support cases with collections rose to 4.2 million, an increase of 48% from 2.8 million in 1992. As Graph 4:1 shows, in fiscal year 1996, $12 billion was collected in child support. In 1997, the state and federal child support enforcement program collected a record $13.4 billion for children, an increase of 68% from 1992, when $8 billion was collected. The Administration's goal is to increase collections to $20 billion a year by the year 2000.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement established a record 1.3 million paternities in 1997, two and a half times the 1992 figure of 510,000. Much of this success is due to the in-hospital voluntary paternity establishment program begun in 1994 which encourages fathers to acknowledge paternity at the time of the child's birth. This includes over 350,000 paternities established in-hospital which was a Clinton Administration initiative which pre-dated passage of PRWORA.

A key to improvements in the nation's child support enforcement program is the use of modern automated technology. The new National Directory of New Hires had located one million delinquent parents since its October 1, 1997 launch. The directory, proposed by the President in 1994 and enacted as part of the 1996 welfare reform law, helps track parents across state lines and withhold their wages by enabling child support officials to match records of delinquent parents with wage records from throughout the nation. Approximately one-third of all child support cases involve parents living in different states.

Graph 4:2 provides information on AFDC Child Support Collections from FY 1992 - FY 1996, and Table 4:2 gives data on the average child support caseload by AFDC/FC, Non-AFDC, and AFDC/FC Arrears Only, FY 1992 - FY 1996.

Appendices:

Graph 4:1 Total Child Support Collections(See page 7 of the PDF file)

Graph 4:2 AFDC Collections (See page 8 of the PDF file)

Graph 4:3 Non AFDC Collections (See page 11 of the PDF file)

Table 4:1 Financial Overview for Five Consecutive Fiscal Years (PDF)

Table 4:2 Statistical Overview for Five Consecutive Fiscal Years (PDF)

Table 4:3 Financial Program Status, FY 1996