In general, child support is the cash payment that noncustodial parents are obligated to pay for the financial support of their children. These payments enable parents who do not live with their children to fu lfill their financial responsibility to their children by contributing to the payment of childrearing costs. Child support orders generally are established when parents divorce or separate, or when the custodial parent applies for cash benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program (Title IV-A of the Social Security Act). The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program, Part D of Title IV of the Social Security Act, was enacted on January 4, 1975 ( P.L. 93-647 ). The CSE program is administered by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and receives mandatory funding each fiscal year in the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and 62 tribal nations operate CSE programs and are entitled to federal matching funds. The CSE program is estimated to handle 50%-60% of all child support cases; the remaining cases are handled by private attorneys, collection agencies, or through mutual agreements between the parents. Families receiving TANF benefits, foster care payments (Title IV-E of the Social Security Act), or Medicaid coverage (Title XIX of the Social Security Act) automatically qualify for CSE services free of charge. Collections on behalf of families receiving cash TANF benefits are used, in part, to reimburse state and federal governments for the TANF payments made to the family. Other families must apply for CSE services, and states must charge an annual user fee that cannot exceed $25. Child support collected on behalf of non-TANF families goes to the family, usually through the state disbursement unit. Child support payments collected by CSE agencies increased from $1 billion in FY1978 to $28.6 billion in FY2015. Over the same period, the number of children whose paternity was established or acknowledged increased from 111,000 to 1.484 million. However, the program still collects only 20% of child support obligations for which it has responsibility if payments on past-due child support (i.e., "arrearages") are taken into account (otherwise, 65%) and collects payments for only 61% of its caseload. OCSE data indicate that in FY2015, paternity had been established or acknowledged for 96% of the 10.6 million children on the CSE caseload without legally identified fathers. In FY2015, total CSE expenditures amounted to $5.7 billion. On average, in FY2015 the CSE program collected $5.26 in child support payments for each $1 spent on the program. Table 1 , below, provides FY2015 data on the CSE program, including total collections and expenditures, caseload numbers, and the number of paternities and child support orders established. The balance of this report describes each of the major program elements of the CSE program. It also includes a discussion of the related programs: Access and Visitation Grants and the Responsible Fatherhood Program. The CSE program provides seven major services on behalf of children: (1) parent location, (2) paternity establishment, (3) establishment of child support orders, (4) review and modification of child support orders, (5) collection of child support payments, (6) distribution of child support payments, and (7) establishment and enforcement of medical support. If a state's CSE program cannot locate the noncustodial parent with the information provided by the custodial parent, it must try to locate the noncustodial parent through the State Parent Locator Service (SPLS), which is an assembly of systems that includes the State Child Support Case Registry and the State Directory of New Hires. The automated State Child Support Case Registry, as required by federal law, contains records of each case in which CSE services are being provided and all new or modified child support orders. The registry includes information on the case, the child or children in the case, and both parents, as listed in Table 2 . States also must establish an automated State Directory of New Hires that includes information from employers, including federal, state, and local governments and labor organizations. For each newly hired employee, this directory must include the name, address, and Social Security number of the employee, and the employer's name, address, and tax identification number. This information generally is supplied to the directory within 20 days after the employee is hired. The SPLS also may use other information sources, such as telephone directories, motor vehicle registries, tax files, and employment and unemployment records. In addition to the resources discussed above, a state can ask that the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), which is an assembly of systems operated by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), be used for any of the following purposes: parent location; establishing parentage; establishing, setting the amount of, modifying, or enforcing child support obligations; or enforcing child custody or visitation orders. The FPLS assists federal and state agencies in identifying overpayments and fraud, and assists with assessing benefits. These systems can access data from the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and State Employment Security Agencies. Moreover, the FPLS also can search its federal case registry of child support orders and the national directory of new hires (NDNH), which are federal directories consisting of information from the state directories and federal agencies Automation is critical to the operation and success of the CSE program so that records in the various parent location systems can be cross-checked to aid in the location of noncustodial parents. Federal law requires that a designated state agency (directly or by contract) conduct automated comparisons of the Social Security numbers reported by employers to the state directory of new hires and those associated with CSE cases that appear in the State Child Support Case Registry. It also requires the HHS Secretary to conduct similar comparisons of the federal directories. Legally identifying the father is a prerequisite for obtaining a child support order. For any children born into a marriage, the husband is generally deemed to be the father; therefore, in divorce cases paternity generally does not need to be affirmatively established. In nonmarital birth cases, however, paternity must be established prior to when a child support order is obtained. Federal law requires states to have procedures that permit the establishment of paternity for all children under the age of 18. TANF applicants and recipients are legally required to cooperate in establishing paternity or obtaining support payments, and may be penalized for noncooperation. If it is determined that an individual is not cooperating and that individual does not qualify for any good cause or other exception, the state must reduce the family's TANF benefit by at least 25%, and may eliminate it entirely. Additional federal requirements associated with paternity establishment include the following: 1. state CSE programs must establish paternity for at least 90% of the CSE cases needing such a determination; 2. each state must implement a simple civil process for establishing paternity; 3. an affidavit must be available that can be completed by men voluntarily acknowledging paternity and that the affidavit be entitled to full faith and credit in any state; 4. a signed acknowledgment of paternity must be considered a legal finding of paternity unless it is rescinded within 60 days, and thereafter may be challenged in court only on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact; and 5. no judicial or administrative action will be needed to ratify an acknowledgment that is not challenged. For contested paternity cases, federal law further requires that all parties submit to genetic testing. A child support order is a legal document that obligates a noncustodial parent to provide financial support for his or her children, and stipulates the amount of the obligation and how it is to be paid. It is usually established at the time of divorce or when an unmarried couple dissolves their relationship. It also may be established when a TANF case is initiated. The child support order is established administratively by a state/county CSE agency or through the state courts. Federal law requires states to use their state-established guidelines in establishing child support orders. These guidelines are a set of rules and tables that are used to determine the amount of the child support order. Child support guidelines are designed to protect the best interests of the child or children in question by trying to ensure that they continue to benefit from the financial resources of both parents in situations in which the parents go their separate ways. They are also intended to make the calculation of child support fair, objective, consistent, and predictable (which in many instances can have the added benefit of reducing conflict and tension between the parents). States decide child support amounts based on the noncustodial parent's income or based on both parents' incomes. Other factors that may be considered include the age of child, whether a stepparent is in the home, whether the child is disabled, and the number of siblings. States currently use one of three basic types of guidelines to determine child support award amounts (i.e., the child support order): 1. "Income shares," which is based on the combined incomes of both parents (39 states, Guam, and the Virgin Islands); 2. "Percentage of income," in which the number of eligible children is used to determine a percentage of the noncustodial parents' income to be paid in child support (8 states); and 3.