Challenges and Success in Collecting Interstate Child Support 

Expansion of the Federal Parent Locator 

Service (FPLS) 

The FPLS is operated and maintained by the 

Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). Established as part of the 

Federal child support program in 1975, the 

FPLS helps state child support agencies 

determine the location of noncustodial 

parents (NCPs). The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 

expanded the FPLS to include two new 

databases: 

o The National Directory of New Hires 

(NDNH) contains quarterly wage data, 

unemployment insurance claimant data, 

and information on newly hired 

employees from across the country. 

o The Federal Case Registry (FCR) 

contains child support case information 

from all 54 states and territories. 

Data in the NDNH are automatically 

compared on a daily basis to data in the FCR 

to locate NCPs involved in child support 

cases as well as putative fathers. Information from these matches is forwarded to 

the states so they can take child support 

enforcement action if needed, such as 

issuing income withholding orders. 

Estimating Collections Attributable to 

NDNH New Hire Matches with the FCR 

Interstate child support cases involving 

parents who live and work in a different 

state are among the most difficult for state 

child support agencies to pursue. To 

quantify the effectiveness of these tools and 

states’ use of them to collect interstate child 

support, OCSE has conducted 11 state 

studies. The studies used a random sample 

of NCP matches resulting from new hire 

information submitted to the NDNH. 

Results: 

• Forty-five percent of the sample 

NDNH new hire matches that had 

child support orders in place 

resulted in the issuance of an 

income withholding order (IWO) 

directly from a state child support 

agency to an employer. 

• Forty percent of those IWOs 

resulted in a collection directly 

attributable to the NDNH-FCR 

new hire match. 

• The median monthly child support 

payment in these cases was $233. 

It is estimated that over $85 million is 

collected annually in these 11 states. By 

projecting these results nationally, an 

estimated $372 million in child support 

would be collected annually due to these 

matches. 

Collections not directly attributable to the 

new hire match (i.e., the state already knew 

about the employment from another source) 

are not included. Therefore, these figures 

are conservative estimates of the 

effectiveness of the NDNH at generating 

information resulting in child support 

collections in interstate cases. 

LESSON LEARNED: MANY NONCUSTODIAL 

PARENTS CHANGE JOBS FREQUENTLY

Even in states that achieve the highest 

collection rate (percent of cases that resulted 

in a payment) with NDNH new hire data, 

there is a steady decline in the payments 

attributable to these matches over time. The 

chart below, “NDNH Attributable 

Collections Over Time By State,” examines 

only the cases that resulted in a payment. It 

shows that the proportion of cases with a 
payment declined from 100 percent in the 

first month to a range of 47 to 28 percent 

across the states in the sixth month. By 

month 12, the proportion of payments that 

still continued ranged from 28 to 9 percent. 

 

to another job, and the NDNH and FCR 

must locate them again. This underscores 

the mobility of NCPs and the importance of 

daily matches and employment information 

At best, 72 percent of NCPs from whom being current. 

attributable payments are collected have

ended their employment, most likely moving 

NDNH Attributable Collections Over Time By State

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Month

Percentage of Continuing Payments

State A

State B

State C

State D

State E

State F

State G

State H

State I

State J

State K

State

LESSON LEARNED: NDNH PROVIDES 

TIMELY EMPLOYER DATA

An interesting aspect of the results that 

states have achieved with new hire 

information from the NDNH is the rate of 

collections from temporary employment 

agencies (temp agencies). Given the 

temporary nature of jobs that workers obtain 

through temp agencies, they can be one of 

the hardest types of employers from which 

to collect child support. By separating the 

sample into temp agencies and other 

employers and comparing the results for 

each group, we can see how effective the 

NDNH is at locating NCPs and providing 

current employment information to states 

before they change jobs again. The chart 

below, “Success with Temp Agencies,” 

shows results from issuing IWOs to temp 

agencies that are counter-intuitive, given the 

transitory nature of such employment. The 

overall collection rate for temp agencies is 

12 percent, not far behind the collection rate 

of 13 percent for other employers. The 

collection rate is the percent of the total 

sample matches that resulted in a payment. 

However, a payment is only counted if it can 

be directly attributed to this national match. 

If the state was already collecting on the 

case or knew about this employment through 

another source, the payment was not 
counted for this analysis. These are 

payments that the state would not have 

likely collected otherwise, or at least not as 

timely. Although the sample size in 

individual states is too small to draw 

statistically valid conclusions, the chart 

suggests the possibility that one factor in the 

success of states with higher collection rates 

is their ability to collect child support from 

temp agencies. Preliminary analysis 

indicates that collections from temporary 

employment agencies do not continue as 

long as those from other employers. 

At a minimum, we can conclude from the 

results of the 11 studies that the NDNH 

provides new employer data quickly enough 

to achieve significant results from noncustodial parents with the most transient 

type of employment, and that temp agencies 

should not be ignored by child support 

agencies when sending income withholding 

orders to employers. 

Success With Temp Agencies 

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

State C State F State H State I State A State E State D State G State B State K State J

TEMP Collection RATE

NON TEMP Collection RATE

7% 8% 10% 11% 12% 14% 14% 15% 16% 19% 21% Collection Rate

% of Sample: 

Overall Collection Rate: 

Non-Temp Rate: 

Temp Rate: 

 16%

 13%

 13%

 12%

LESSON LEARNED: TIMELY PROCESSING 

OF NDNH NEW HIRE DATA IS CRUCIAL

 

Although there are many variables that 

affect the success of collecting child support 

using NDNH-FCR data, comparative results 

for the same state from two different fiscal 

years underscore the importance of 

processing incoming NDNH matches in a 

timely manner. OCSE studied one state for 

two different fiscal years and found 

significant improvement from one year to 

the next in the effective and timely use of 

NDNH new hire matches. The collection 

rate (percent of total sample matches that 

resulted in a collection) more than doubled, 

from 7.5 percent to 15.4 percent. 

The main difference between the two years 

was the timeliness with which the state 

processed the incoming matches and issued 

IWOs to matched employers. The study 

found that, for nearly six months during the 

first year, matches returned by the NDNH 

did not post in a timely manner. Those 

matches were held by the system and 

released later in the year, while most of the 

second year matches were posted in a timely 

manner. Significant delays in processing 

data and issuing income withholding orders 
increase the chance that an obligor will have 

changed jobs by the time the IWO is 

received by the employer who reported the 

new hire, and ultimately decrease the 

resulting collections. The effect of the 

delayed data processing on the collection 

rate and estimated annual collections is 

shown in the chart, “State Improved 

Results,” below. 

STATE IMPROVED RESULTS 

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Year 1 Year 2

C o lle c t i o n s ( i n m i llio n s )

0.0%

3.0%

6.0%

9.0%

12.0%

15.0%

18.0%

C o l l ect i o n R a t e

Collections

Collection Rate

Conclusion 

OCSE continues to study demographic 

issues affecting the collection of child 

support. The establishment and enforcement 

of child support across state lines are among 

the most difficult problems in the Child 

Support Enforcement program. Even with 

these and many other challenges, the 

program continues to increase collections, 

with the help of such innovations as direct 

income withholding and the expansion of 

the FPLS. 

• The employment mobility of many 

NCPs is reflected in the gradual 

decline of payments attributable to 

an individual employer — under-scoring 

the importance of the proactive nature of 

the system and current employment 

data. 

• The NDNH provides new hire data 

in such a timely manner that states 

are realizing collections from 

temporary employment agencies — 

known in child support as one of the 

most difficult types of employer 

from which to obtain collections. 

• Timely processing of incoming 

NDNH new hire matches is crucial 

— the faster the data are processed 

and income withholding orders 

issued, the more likely a state is to 

achieve collections. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Administration for Children and Families 

Office of Child Support Enforcement 

http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/

The Story Behind the Numbers 

January 2005