in 1994, while the proportion of births occur-
ring outside of marriage has remained at ap-
proximately 33 percent since 1998. 
(C) The negative consequences of out-of-
wedlock birth on the mother, the child, the fam-
ily, and society are well documented. These in-
clude increased likelihood of welfare depend-
ency, increased risks of low birth weight, poor 
cognitive development, child abuse and neglect, 
and teen parenthood, and decreased likelihood 
of having an intact marriage during adulthood. 
(D) An estimated 24,500,000 children do 
not live with their biological fathers, and 
7,100,000 children do not live with their bio-
logical mothers. These facts are attributable 
largely to declining marriage rates, increasing 
divorce rates, and increasing rates of nonmar-
ital births during the latter part of the 20th 
century. 
(E) There has been a dramatic rise in co-
habitation as marriages have declined. Only 40 
percent of children of cohabiting couples will 
see their parents marry. Those who do marry
experience a 50 percent higher divorce rate. 
Children in single-parent households and cohab-
iting households are at much higher risk of 
child abuse than children in intact married and 
stepparent families. 
(F) Children who live apart from their bio-
logical fathers, on average, are more likely to be 
poor, experience educational, health, emotional, 
and psychological problems, be victims of child 
abuse, engage in criminal behavior, and become 
involved with the juvenile justice system than 
their peers who live with their married, biologi-
cal mother and father. A child living in a single-
parent family is nearly 5 times as likely to be 
poor as a child living in a married-couple fam-
ily. In 2001, in married-couple families, the 
child poverty rate was 8 percent, and in house-
holds headed by a single mother, the poverty 
rate was 39.3 percent. 
(G) Since the enactment of the Personal 
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconcili-
ation Act of 1996, child support collections 
within the child support enforcement system 
have 
grown 
every 
year, 
increasing 
from 
$12,000,000,000 in fiscal year 1996 to nearly 
$19,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2001. The num-
ber of paternities established or acknowledged
in fiscal year 2002 reached an historic high of 
over 1,500,000—which includes more than a 
100 percent increase through in-hospital ac-
knowledgement programs to 790,595 in 2001 
from 324,652 in 1996. Child support collections 
were made in well over 7,000,000 cases in fiscal 
year 2000, significantly more than the almost 
4,000,000 cases having a collection in 1996. 
(3) The Personal Responsibility and Work Op-
portunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 gave States 
great flexibility in the use of Federal funds to de-
velop innovative programs to help families leave wel-
fare and begin employment and to encourage the 
formation of 2-parent families. 
(A) Total Federal and State TANF ex-
penditures 
in 
fiscal 
year 
2001 
were 
$25,500,000,000, up from $24,000,000,000 in 
fiscal year 2000 and $22,600,000,000 in fiscal 
year 1999. This increased spending is attrib-
utable to significant new investments in sup-
portive services in the TANF program, such as 
child care and activities to support work. 
(B) Since the welfare reform effort began 
there has been a dramatic increase in work par-
ticipation (including employment, community