Child Support

Title IV-D of the Social Security Act, also known as the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, was created in 1975 to establish a federal-state partnership to help families obtain and enforce child support orders. The primary purpose of the program is to ensure that both parents are financially responsible for their children, regardless of whether they are married, separated, or divorced.

Before the creation of Title IV-D, child support was primarily enforced at the state level, and the results were often inconsistent and ineffective. Many custodial parents (usually mothers) struggled to get the financial support they needed to raise their children, and the government ended up providing assistance to many low-income families.

Title IV-D provided federal funding to help states create or improve their child support enforcement programs. The program also established uniform guidelines for setting child support orders based on the non-custodial parent’s income and the needs of the child. Additionally, Title IV-D required states to establish a centralized child support enforcement agency responsible for locating non-custodial parents, establishing paternity, and enforcing child support orders.

As states began to receive these federal funds, they saw this as an opportunity to increase their state budgets and began to rely on those federal funds. To ensure that they received the maximum funding, they ensured that the parent most likely to pay the most in child support (usually the father), would receive the minimum amount of custody, which in turn would guarantee a high amount of child support funds from which they would guarantee those federal funds. 

This process has caused increased conflict between parents, creating tension and stress for both parents as well as the child.