Unpaid Child Support

Beginning in the mid-1980s, federal and state officials increased their focus on the issue of unpaid child support. Many laws were passed to improve enforcement and go after “deadbeats.” Like the perennial “War on Crime,” progress is slow and new laws do not provide a full solution to the problem.

The Census Bureau reports that only about half of the parents entitled to receive child support receive the full amount that is due. About one-quarter of parents to whom support is due receive partial payments, and the other one-quarter receive nothing at all. In recent years, about $13 billion dollars per year in court-ordered child support is not paid. The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement reported that, as of 2003, the total amount of unpaid child support (referred to as arrearages) reached $96 billion.

In addition to that, there are several million mothers who have not obtained orders of child support for their children. A high proportion of those women had children out of wedlock. Approximately 27 percent of custodial mothers do not have agreements or court orders giving them child support. By comparison, 61 percent of custodial fathers do not have orders or agreements by which the mother pays child support to the father.

For custodial parents who actually receive child support, the average amount owed is $5,044 per year, or about $420 per month. (These are 2002 figures--the last year in which a complete survey was done by the Census Bureau.)

Payment of child support correlates with visitation or time spent with the child. The Census Bureau reports that 77 percent of noncustodial parents with joint custody or visitation paid child support, whereas only 56 percent of noncustodial parents without joint custody or visitation paid support.

The cost of trying to collect unpaid child support is substantial. According to the U.S. Office of Child Support Enforcement, in Fiscal Year 2003, federal and state child support enforcement agencies spent $5.2 billion to collect about $21.2 billion in child support. Each dollar of administrative costs generated about $4.13 of child support payments (although some portion of child support payments would have been made without involvement of an enforcement agency).