Who Owes the Child Support Debt? 

States report that over $90 billion has 

accumulated in unpaid child support 

since the inception of the federal child 

support program in 1975. As of April 

2003, over $70 billion was certified by states 

for the Federal Offset Program. This debt 

was owed by 5 million debtors in 6.7 million 

child support cases. The following analysis 

focuses only on the certified debt. 

OCSE wants to know how much of this debt 

can reasonably be expected to be paid. 

OCSE did a data match comparing the 

debtors from the Federal Offset File* with 

the Quarterly Wage Files**. Here is what 

we found: 

Most child support debtors report little or 

no earnings. 

• 63% of the debtors, holding 70% of the 

$70 billion debt, had reported earnings 

of less than $10,000. 

o 29% had reported earnings 

between $1 and $10,000. 

o 34% had no reported earnings. 

Why do 1/3 of debtors have no reported 

earnings? 

Does this mean they had no income? Not 

necessarily. 

• Not all earnings are reported to state 

Quarterly Wage files. 

o Only wages for “covered” 

employment (i.e., employment 

subject to the state Unemployment 

Insurance Tax) are required to be 

reported. For example, earnings for 

the self-employed and independent 

contractors are not covered. 

o Federal and military employment 

are not reported to state Quarterly 

Wage files. However, these were 

included in this match done by 

OCSE. 

• Some earnings that should be reported 

by employers are not. Debtors By Reported 

Annual Earnings • Earnings from illegal activities or those 

being paid “under the table” are not 

reported. More than 

$20,000

None Why should we be concerned about 

debtors with no reported earnings? 34%

$10,001-

Because they represent 34% of the debtors 

and owe over 42% of the certified debt. 

OCSE did matches of this group with other 

databases. Here is what we found: 

20,000

16%

$1- 10, 00 0

29%

21%

1.7 Million Debtors With No Quarterly Wage Records - 

Matches With Other Files

0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000

Has Bank Account

Incarcerated 

Receiving SSA Benefits

New Hires 

Tax Offset Occurred

Receiving SSI Benefits

Receiving UI Benefits 

Number of Debtors
What do we know about these debtors 

with no reported earnings? 

Matches of this group with other databases 

indicate that: 

• 10 % have bank accounts. The value of 

these accounts is in excess of $1 billion. 

o Over 11,000 debtors had accounts 

in excess of $10,000. 

• A significant number were receiving 

federal benefits, such as Social 

Security and Unemployment Insurance 

benefits, which are attachable to pay 

child support. 

• Some appeared in the National 

Directory of New Hires, indicating new 

employment. 

• For others, a Federal tax refund offset to 

pay child support occurred. 

• Others were incarcerated. 

What does this tell us? 

While it appears that most child support debt 

is owed by persons with little or no income, 

does that mean we should forget about 

collecting on that debt? 

No. Further analysis indicates that there are 

untapped resources available to pay some of 

this child support debt. Child support 

enforcement agencies have to systematically 

utilize tools other than wage withholding to 

enforce these orders. The purpose of debt 

analysis isn’t to justify writing off debt; it is 

about being smarter to get debt paid. 

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/

Arrears Management 

The best way to reduce the total national 

child support debt is to avoid accumulating 

arrears in the first place. The best ways to 

avoid the accumulation of arrears are to set 

appropriate orders initially, modify orders 

via simple procedures promptly when family 

circumstances change, and immediately 

intervene when current support is not paid. 

Parents should share in the cost of 

supporting their children according to their 

ability. Designing a system that establishes 

appropriate orders will encourage payment 

of child support. 

And what do we do about people who have 

accumulated large debts, but clearly are 

unable to pay these extremely large debts? 

In FY 2003, we only collected 58% of 

current support due. Preliminary data from 

one state indicate that only about 30% of 

non-custodial parents with orders make a 

payment consistently each month. Also, we 

know that about 50% of the debt is owed to 

the government. We need to be more 

creative in finding ways to leverage the old 

government debt in order to encourage the 

payment of current support. We need to 

find a way to do this that avoids sending the 

message that obligors can ignore support 

obligations because of the possibility that 

the state may eventually accept less than the 

full amount owed. This may mean targeting 

certain groups of debtors who are lowincome and are most likely to accumulate 

the debt, for interest amnesty or debt 

compromise programs. We want child 

support to be a reliable source of income for 

children. 

*Federal Offset File: The Federal Offset Program assists 

states with collection of child support debt by enforcing four 

remedies. States submit cases with child support debt that 

meet certain minimum requirements. 

**Quarterly Wage File: Employers report wages that were 

paid to an employee during the quarter, to the state agency, as 

required by state law. Federal agencies and each state collect 

quarterly wage data and forward this information to the 

National Directory of New Hires. 

 The Story Behind the Numbers 
July 2004