A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said more than two-thirds of the undistributed money was tied up in government red tape. The article's title includes the statement, maybe it's the system that's deadbeat. We often hear about the negative effects of child-support agency blunders on women and children. We seldom hear of negative consequences of agency blunders from the perspective of the 14 million noncustodial parents, mostly fathers. Innocent payers can be subjected to any number of penalties including the loss of driver's licenses and jail time, when in reality they paid the support money.
States are notorious for failing to keep interstate child-support records straight.
Child-support money can be paid in one state and reported as owed in another. When custodial parents are led to believe the money wasn't paid, this can make the relationship between parents deteriorate, thereby negatively affecting the children. In this report, only custodial parents were interviewed as a report source. Furthermore, in many cases where a custodial parent is on welfare, the father's child-support payments go directly to the state for welfare reimbursement not to the children. Many custodial parents may be unaware that the noncustodial parent is paying, because the money is going to the state.