On June 18, 1996, President Clinton announced three actions to strengthen the child support enforcement program and promote parental responsibility. These actions were:
- implementing a pilot program to track nonpaying parents across state lines;
- challenging all states to adopt statewide new hire reporting programs; and
- issuing new regulations requiring women who apply for welfare to comply with paternity establishment requirements before receiving benefits.
Federal Program to Track Parents Across State Lines
Approximately 30 percent of the current child support caseload involves interstate cases. The Administration's new pilot program will track parents who are delinquent in child support payments from job to job and across state lines.Under the new program, the 25 states with existing new hire reporting systems will be able to send new hire information to the Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). The data will then be matched by computer against lists of nonpaying parents sent by states to the department. When a match is found, OCSE will contact the state where the parent owes child support so that the state can issue a wage withholding order or take other appropriate action, such as initiating paternity proceedings.
New Hire Reporting Programs
In those 25 states with new hire reporting programs, employers are required or encouraged to report new hires to a state agency. As indicated above, information is cross-matched by computer against lists of parents in the state who owe child support and, when a match is found, appropriate action is taken.These programs have been called the single biggest innovation in child support enforcement in the past decade and have significantly increased collections in the states that have adopted them: Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.
In Florida, for example, over 8,000 matches were made for child support cases in 1995. The annual amount of support owed under these cases amounted to $15.2 million.
Under Washington's new hire program . . . every dollar spent . . . returns approximately $20 in child support collections.
In Washington State, the time required to receive employment information has been reduced from 178 to 43 days. That means better collections, faster wage withholding, and more child support for children.Under Washington's program, employers may report new hire information in a variety of wayscomputer diskettes, tapes, or by faxing reports to a special 800 toll-free line. In addition, Washington's program is cost effective. Every dollar spent on the program returns approximately $20 in child support collections.
New Regulations Requiring Mothers to Cooperate with Paternity Establishment Efforts This action directs OCSE, through DHHS, to issue new regulations that require all mothers who apply for welfare to cooperate in establishing paternity prior to receiving benefits (subject to appropriate good cause exceptions). Welfare applicants and recipients will also be required to comply with stricter cooperation standards.
The new, stricter definition of cooperation requires that welfare applicants and recipients provide the name of their child's father and other identifying information, such as address or place of employment, as a condition of eligibility for assistance.
Welfare applicants must also be referred to the state child support agency within two days of application, so that the agency can initiate a legal paternity action if necessary. This executive action will build upon the in-hospital paternity establishment program proposed by the Administration and passed by Congress in 1993.