This report provides an overview of the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program’s development and current congressional issues. It is part of a series of CRS reports that focus on changes in programs affecting low-income children in light of the upcoming 30-year anniversary of enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA; P.L. 104-193). The CSE program serves about one in six (17%) of U.S. children as of FY2024. Though the program is financed in part by the federal government and is subject to federal rules and regulations, it is operated and partially financed by the states. All 50 states and four jurisdictions (the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) operate CSE programs, generally at the county level of government. In addition, 63 tribal nations operate CSE programs. At the federal level, the CSE program is administered by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), which is in the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’) Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The CSE program was enacted in 1975 as a federal-state program (established in Title IV-D of the Social Security Act [SSA] by P.L. 93-647). At its inception, the primary purpose of the CSE program was to reduce public expenditures on cash assistance (then Aid to Families with Dependent Children [AFDC], currently the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF] block grant) by obtaining ongoing support from noncustodial parents that could be used to reimburse the state and federal governments for part of that assistance. Cash assistance recipients were required to cooperate with CSE activities and assign (i.e., legally turn over) collections made on their behalf to the state. These collections were then split between the federal and state governments as reimbursement for cash assistance payments. Relatedly, the program also sought to ensure financial support for children from their noncustodial parents on a consistent and continuing basis to enable some of their families to remain off public assistance. In the early years of the legislative expansion of the CSE program, many laws focused on increasing CSE program tools that would help hold parents accountable for financially taking care of their children. The mission of the program was gradually broadened beyond recouping the cost of cash assistance to providing services for both families that receive cash assistance and those that do not. At the same time, the role of the CSE program for cash assistance families began to encompass providing income support for those families by distributing to them some of the child support that was collected on their behalf (i.e., a pass through of $50 of such support). In the 1990s, many years of state experimentation with CSE mechanisms intersected with broader congressional interest in welfare reform, and culminated in the enactment of PRWORA. The law made numerous changes aimed at strengthening child support establishment and enforcement authorities that would apply to all families. With regard to distribution rules, PRWORA eliminated the requirement that the first $50 in child support collections on behalf of current cash assistance families (now provided through the TANF program) be passed through. This meant that those collections would instead be retained by the state and federal government to reimburse the cost of TANF cash assistance payments. At the same time, to encourage families who were no longer receiving cash assistance to continue to be financially self-sufficient, PRWORA also revised the distribution rules to prioritize distributing to those families the past-due support owed to them. In the 30 years since PRWORA’s enactment, the legislative changes made to the CSE program (both enacted and proposed) generally have sought to build on that law’s framework of establishment, collections, and enforcement tools. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA; P.L. 109-171) again revisited distribution rules with the intent of providing current TANF families with greater financial stability. Specifically, states were generally provided the option to pass through up to $100 (one child) or $200 (two or more children) of child support a month collected on behalf of current TANF families. Multiple laws have also sought to expand access to certain child support data to non-CSE programs, including to verify program eligibility and prevent or end improper payments. The most recent law to make changes to the CSE program, the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act (P.L. 118-258), addressed federal tax information access for both tribal CSE agencies and the contractors of state, local, and tribal CSE agencies.
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