The purpose of this analysis is to identify the characteristics of the custodial parent families using the services of the child support enforcement system authorized under Title IV-D of the Social Security Act. The analysis uses Census data to describe this population by various family financial characteristics, including both participation in welfare and other government programs and income and poverty. It also provides information on demographic characteristics such as gender and marital status of the custodial parent and the residence of the noncustodial parent. Finally, it addresses the question of whether the family has an child support agreement or has received child support payments. The data cover the status of families in calendar year 1995.
Participation in the IV-D system was determined by a number of variables that are detailed below and in the technical appendix. Families in the IV-D system are further broken down into three categories: families receiving cash benefits under Title IV-A, families using other means-tested non-cash public assistance programs, and families that reported no public assistance usage during 1995.
The source for this analysis is the data file matching the March 1996 Current Population Survey (CPS) and the April 1996 Child Support Supplement (CSS). Every March, the Census Bureau administers an expanded version of the monthly CPS that includes key demographic and income variables. Every other April, with funding from the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), 75 percent of the March CPS sample is given a supplemental survey that includes questions on children with absent parents and the child support program. The March and April data are then merged into one single file. The CPS-CSS match file from March/April 1996 is the most recent major national child support survey for which data are available. However, the data should be considered preliminary as the Census Bureau has not yet released the public use file for the data.
The population of interest for this analysis, custodial families that use the IV-D system, was drawn from the identified population of child support eligible parents using variables from both the March and April surveys. These variables included: parents who reported that they had contacted the child support program for help or had been contacted by the child support program; parents who reported receiving their child support payment through the child support or welfare agency, and; parents who said they did not know the amount of child support due because the child support agency had filed the paperwork. Parents who received Title IV-A cash benefits or were enrolled in Medicaid were also considered to be in the IV-D program. This assumption was made because of child support enforcement cooperation requirements that are part of the regulations guiding those programs. There is currently no way of comparing the numbers in this analysis to the IV-D caseload data reported by the states, since state caseload reporting requirements, are not based on counts of custodial parent families like the estimates from the household-based sample of the CPS-CSS survey.
The technical appendix, found at the end of this document, includes a complete explanation of each of the variables used to make up the various categories in the analysis. Because many of the characteristics included in this piece could not be captured by only one or two variables on the CPS-CSS match file, a variety of assumptions needed to be made. These assumptions, and the effects that they may have had on the findings, are also detailed in the technical appendix.
There were 13,739,431 child support eligible families in the United States in 1995. A child support eligible family is defined as a custodial parent with an own child under age twenty-one living in the household whose other parent is absent from the household. Only a portion of the child support eligible population receives services through the IV-D program. This analysis found that 8.7 million families, or 63 percent of the 13.7 million child support eligible parents, participated in the IV-D system. Table 1 provides an overview of all of the family variables analyzed in this report, shown for the entire child support eligible population. Beginning with Table 2, all subsequent tables identify these characteristics within the IV-D and non IV-D populations.
Data from the March survey was used to determine the participation of IV-D parents and their families in a variety of public assistance programs. Almost 3 million parents (34 percent) lived in families in which at least one member received cash assistance through Title IV-A of the Social Security Act in 1995 (Table 1). Medicaid receipt was reported by 58 percent of IV-D families, and nearly 44 percent were enrolled in the Food Stamps program. Lesser numbers reported receiving housing subsidies (in the form of public housing or housing assistance) and family income from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
Participation in the four non-cash public assistance programs (Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies, and SSI) were used to form the three categories of families that are shown in each of the tables in this document: families receiving IV-A, families receiving other public assistance (but not IV-A), and families not receiving public assistance. Overall, fewer than 3 million IV-D families were receiving IV-A, and slightly less were receiving other public assistance. Among IV-D families, 36 percent were not receiving any public assistance.
Significant variations in receipt of public assistance existed between the IV-D and non IV-D populations (Table 2). Among those families in the IV-D program, there was nearly an even split between those in the IV-A program, those receiving other public assistance, and those receiving no public assistance. However, an overwhelming majority (92 percent) of the more than 5 million child support eligible families not in the IV-D program as received no public assistance at all in 1995. This last statistic is affected by the assumption that all families in which income was received from IV-A or in which either the parent or child was covered by Medicaid participated in the IV-D program.
Over 6 million (69 percent) of all IV-D families had a family income under $30,000 in 1995 (Tables 3A and 3B). Families receiving IV-A or other public assistance had the lowest reported incomes. Over 80 percent of child support eligible families receiving income from IV-A, and 61 percent of those reporting other public assistance, had incomes of $20,000 or below. Conversely, less than one-quarter of IV-D families receiving no public assistance had incomes below $20,000.
Families participating in the IV-D program generally had lower incomes than non IV-D families. While the incomes of most IV-D families were grouped in the $0-20,000 range, only 25 percent of non IV-D families fell into that same income range. In both categories, families with no public assistance had higher incomes than those reporting some sort of welfare. Tables 2A and 2B show the numbers and percentages of child support families in various income categories.
In addition to family income, the ratio of the family's income to the poverty level is an important measure of economic well-being. Each year, the Census Bureau estimates poverty thresholds that are adjusted for the size of the family unit. In 1995, the weighted average poverty threshold was $12,158 for a family of three and $15,569 for a family of four (Table 4A).
Over 3.5 million, or 41 percent of the IV-D families were below this threshold, and over two-thirds had incomes that fell below 200 percent of the poverty level (Tables 4B and 4C). A large majority (74 percent) of IV-D families receiving cash assistance were in poverty, as were 42 percent of those families receiving only other assistance. Families with no public assistance were less poor, with 8 percent having incomes below poverty and about two-thirds having incomes at or above 200 percent of the poverty level. Nearly two-thirds of non IV-D families had incomes above 200 percent of the poverty level, while 32 percent of IV-D families fell into this category.
Most families in the IV-D system are headed by custodial mothers. There were 7.8 million IV-D families headed by females in 1995, or 89 percent of the population (Table 5). Nearly a million families headed by fathers were in the IV-D caseload, making up more than 10 percent of IV-D families. Slightly more than a million fathers were not receiving IV-D services. These custodial fathers represented 23 percent of families outside the IV-D system. Custodial fathers were better off than custodial mothers; 50 percent of IV-D families headed by men were receiving no public assistance, compared to 34 percent of female-headed IV-D families.
Never married parents made up a high percentage of the IV-D caseload in 1995. Among all custodial parents of IV-D families, 34 percent had never been married, while 46 percent were divorced or separated, 17 percent were currently married, and a small number had been widowed. By contrast, only 13 percent of non IV-D parents had never been married (Table 6). Of all families headed by a never married parent, 82 percent were participating in the IV-D program, and about half of those families were receiving IV-A. Of those families not receiving IV-D, 84 percent were headed by parents who were divorced, separated, or currently married.
The CPS-CSS data indicate that parents did not live in the same state in nearly 2.3 million IV-D families, comprising 26 percent of the IV-D caseload (Table 7). The percentage of interstate cases was not substantially different within the IV-D caseload than out of it (26 percent versus 24 percent). Within the IV-D caseload, custodial mothers receiving IV-A or other public assistance were as likely as those not receiving public assistance to report that the noncustodial parent lived in a different state.
Nearly two-thirds of all IV-D families had child support agreements, while 46 percent of families reported the receipt of some amount of child support payment (Table 8). While families receiving no child support payments made up a slight majority of both the IV-D and non IV-D populations, those families participating in the IV-D program were more likely to at least have a child support agreement. IV-D families receiving no public assistance are more likely to have an both an agreement and receipt of payment (52 percent) than IV-D families reporting receipt of welfare or other public assistance. In both the IV-D and non IV-D populations, families with no agreement and no receipt were more likely to receive some public assistance.
A variety of limitations exist in this study. One of the most crucial lies in the definition of the IV-D population. Since there is no direct question on the April CSS survey regarding receipt of IV-D services, this number had to be estimated through the use of variables from both the March and April surveys. Changing some of the assumptions used in constructing the IV-D population could significantly affect its size and its interaction with the various characteristics. For example, former IV-A families who do not report contact with the IV-D program could be erroneously identified as being outside the IV-D service population even if, based on their former welfare status, they are still receiving services. The use of "family" variables from the CPS, which include only the family and related subfamilies, may also affect the data.
Another major limitation of this study is that the 1995 data used in the analysis pre-dates the welfare reform legislation. As welfare reform is having a major impact on the size and makeup of the IV-A population, it could also affect the size of the child support eligible population, the number of families that participated in the IV-D caseload, and many of the other variables included in this analysis. However, the March/April 1996 data is the most recent survey data available with the necessary child support information to make this analysis possible.
[All the tables are contained in a single Quattro Pro spreadsheet which may be downloaded and viewed by clicking on the Tables link.]
[ HSP Home Page | ASPE Home Page | HHS Home Page ]