TANF 8th Annual Report to Congress - Child Support Collections

Administration for Children and Families

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TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES
(TANF)

Eighth Annual Report to Congress

VI. Child Support Collections

Access and Visitation Program
Appendix

The goal of the nation's Child Support Enforcement Program is to ensure that children are supported financially and emotionally by both of their parents. Custodial parents receiving TANF are required to cooperate with child support enforcement efforts. The child support caseload is increasingly made up of former TANF recipient families for whom child support helps maintain self-sufficiency.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, States achieved a two percent increase in the percentage of current assistance cases for which orders were established and a one percent increase in the percentage of former assistance cases for which orders were established from FY 2005. This means that over 56 percent of current assistance cases had orders established, and over 83 percent of former assistance cases had orders established.

In FY 2006, over $23.9 billion was collected for children by the Child Support Enforcement Program, an increase of four percent from FY 2005, and a nine percent increase since FY 2004. Over 91 percent of distributed collections went to families in FY 2006, an increase of nearly five percent from FY 2005. Total collections included almost $1.6 billion in overdue child support intercepted from Federal tax refunds. In addition, the Passport Denial Program collected $22.6 million in calendar year (CY) 2006, an increase of $5.7 million over the $16.9 million collected in CY 2005.

Over 1.7 million paternities were established in FY 2006. Figure A shows the number of paternities established by IV-D (child support) agencies and by acknowledgement at birth in a hospital from 2002 to 2006. There has been a substantial increase in paternities acknowledged due to the in-hospital acknowledgement program.

Link to Table Version

Data for FY 2006 show that:

With a caseload of over 15.8 million, 54 percent of the total child support cases had a collection.

About 70 percent of the cases with orders established reported a collection. This was an increase over the 69 percent achieved in FY 2005.

Nationally, about $2,806 was collected per case for those with a collection. This was an increase of $35 per case from FY 2005 and an increase of $231 per case from FY 2002.

Total administrative expenditures were $5.6 billion. In FY 2006 States collected about $4.58 in child support for every $1 spent. Figure B shows the Federal and State share of expenditures from FY 2002 to FY 2006. The Federal government pays the largest share of expenditures.

Link to Table Version

Of the 15.8 million child support cases served by IV-D agencies, only 2.3 million involve families currently receiving public assistance , 6.2 million are those who never received public assistance, and the largest group is the 7.3 million that formerly received public assistance. The receipt of child support is especially important to families formerly on assistance. Having income from two parents is very likely a factor keeping them from returning to assistance dependency. Figure C shows the caseload represented in terms of welfare receipt. The current assistance caseload has decreased 15 percent since FY 2003, and the former assistance caseload has decreased one percent from FY 2003. This shift represents a change in those being served by the program, as the vast majority of child support services are now provided to non-public assistance cases.

Link to Table Version

Figure C

The Census Bureau's Current Population Survey on Child Support for CY 2005 indicates that 47 percent of parents who were owed child support payments received the full payment, and nearly 77 percent received some payment. The Child Support Enforcement Program does not collect information on the number of custodial parents who receive their full support.

The number of non-TANF families receiving child support services has been steady over the last couple of years, while TANF-related cases have been declining. In FY 2006, non-TANF collections were $21.8 billion, which is a 27 percent increase from FY 2002. TANF collections were $2.1 billion in FY 2006, which is a 27 percent decrease from FY 2002.

Figure D s hows the dollar value of child support collections distributed each year from 2002 to 2006 divided in terms of two categories of families, those on TANF or in Foster Care and those not on TANF. Figure E shows the distribution of child support collections, but in terms of the family's recipient status. Families that were never on welfare receive the largest portion of total collections.

Link to Table Version

Access and Visitation Program

The Federal Access and Visitation Program provides $10 million per year to States enabling them to encourage non-custodial parents to stay involved with their children. Based upon the number of children living with only one biological or adoptive parent, each State receives from $100,000 to almost $1 million to fund mediation, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement, visitation monitoring, supervised visitation, neutral drop-off and pick-up services, and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.

Appendix

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This is a Historical Document.