This history appears at first to have been similar to early English history
of child support. In the latter case, communities (parishes) rescued destitute
people, including lone mothers and children, often by putting them to
work, and then attempted to recoup their costs from relatives such as
fathers. The money was limited to amounts needed to avoid destitution,
and was claimed by the community, not by individuals such as the lone
mother or personal helpers of the lone mother.
Later, the systems diverged. The English (then the UK) child support
approaches became an addition to "the welfare state". The National
Assistance Act 1948 saw the state implicitly taking on some of the responsibilities
that would once have been between local communities and relatives.The
state (taxpayers!) eventually provided universal family allowances (called
"Child Benefit" for the last decades). Most other "Western"
countries had something similar. Nations with somewhat socialist tendencies
such as Denmark were able to have much milder child support systems. Such
universal benefits lessened or delayed the need for aggressive child support,
such as enacting criminal offences.
In contrast, the USA developed more aggressive child support obligations
during the 19th Century, with criminal law being enacted for the "affront"
of fathers causing mothers and their children to become a burden on the
community. That perhaps reduced the motivation for such universal family
allowances. While there were federal initiatives such as AFDC for poorer
children, there was little for better off lone parents and their children.
In the late 20th Century, AFDC was replaced with TANF (T = temporary),
and this will make timely child support even more imperative in the USA.
Child support is typically an anti-socialist measure, aimed at reducing
welfare spending, and the USA has looked to it to assist with its anti-socialist
/ anti-welfare policies such as TANF. However, it is probably not (yet?)
effective enough for the purpose. GAO.
| When? |
What? |
Information |
| Pre-19th Century |
The poor laws
from 1601 |
The earliest history of child support
in the USA came from the inheritance of the English poor laws. These
laws were intended to allow parishes (local communities) to recover
their costs of keeping people out of destitution from the relatives
of those people. The laws didn't allow those people themselves (or
other people) to claim from their relatives.
See: History of child support in the UK |
| Pre-1776 |
Child support in the 13 colonies |
"Child support law existed
in the thirteen colonies and has existed in the states since the beginning
of the nation's history". Gay. |
See below:
about 1800
to 1880 |
Development of civil law for child
support |
See Hansen.
At first, courts developed civil law for child support. This especially
enabled communities that kept lone mothers and children out of destitution
to claim from the fathers. (This was similar in principle to the poor
laws, but intended to be clearer and more effective). |
| 1808 |
Stanton v. Willson
Connecticut |
"American courts in the nineteenth century addressed the problem
of dependency among single mothers and their children by creating
a legally enforceable child support duty.... One reason for the
divergent fortunes of men and women after a divorce was that the
transformations in the American conception of children from wage
earners to dependents who needed constant nurturing and the trend
toward maternal preference in custody decisions combined to require
divorced women to bear the burden of raising children who did not
work.... American courts in the nineteenth century invented a parental
child support obligation in the context of increasing concerns about
dependency among single mothers.... When single motherhood began
to emerge in nineteenth-century America, the judiciary was the only
institution of the American state that could deal with dependency
among single mothers and their children: The poor laws were being
overwhelmed by population growth and urbanization, and private charities
and state poor-relief agencies had not yet appeared. The first child
support statutes built on this judicial innovation, codifying a
child support system that relied primarily on payments from absent
parents, instead of on public supports for families." Hansen.
|
| 1816 |
Van Valkinburgh v. Watson
New York |
| 1858 |
Tomkins v. Tomkins
New Jersey |
|
See below:
about 1870 onward
|
Development of criminal law for
failing to support children |
See Hansen.
Now states started to pass laws against desertion and nonsupport.
It started to become a criminal offence, with punishments including
prison. Also, gradually it became possible for individuals, such as
lone mthers, to claim child support. |
| By 1886 |
(Compilation of statutes) |
By 1886, 11 states had made it a
penal offence for a father to abandon or refuse to support his minor
children. Typically, it still needed evidence that without this support
the children would be a cost to the community. Hansen. |
| 1884 |
New Jersey statute |
Examples of states taking
action because fathers were criminally responsible for allowing children
to become a public charge. The New York statute punished nonsupporting
fathers with imprisonment and hard labour. Hansen. |
| 1897 |
Bowen v. State
Ohio |
| 1903 |
State v. Peabody
Rhode Island |
| 1st half of 20th Century |
|
The court system continued to operate.
The number of separated families continued to rise. 46 states had
laws criminalising desertion and non-support. |
| 1935 |
Social Security
Act of 1935 (Public Law 74-271)
|
This included Aid for Dependent Children. ADC (later AFDC; F =
Families) established a partnership between the federal government
and the states by providing appropriations to those states which
adopted plans approved by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The states in turn provided a minimum monthly subsistence payment
to families meeting established need requirements (such as an absent
parent not providing support). This later gradually drove child
support enforcement, in order to reduce expenditure on AFDC (see
events below).
"Care for children" becomes one of the few entitlements
for welfare. Compared with other countries, this tends to make "child
support by parents" a prominent objective.
|
| World War 2 |
| 2nd half of 20th Century and onwards |
USA becomes unique in not having
state-provided universal family allowances |
"In most industrialized nations,
private child support payments are not a central way in which the
community makes sure that children are adequately supported. Instead,
most industrialized nations have some kind of child allowances financed
by the public or by employers that go to all families. In England,
for instance, families receive a universal "Child Benefit"
to defray the costs of raising children; and all single-parent families
receive an additional "One Parent Benefit". But although
the United States has generous, publicly funded benefits such as Social
Security and Medicare for elderly Americans, no comparable program
exists for children.... A privatized child support system might have
been a background factor that lessened the pressure for family allowances
in early-twentieth-century America." Hansen. |
| 1948 |
The Uniform Enforcement of Foreign
Judgments Act (UEFJA) |
Some limited applicability to child
support, and largely replaced by the 1964 version. |
| 1950 |
Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of
Support Act (URESA) |
This act has been enacted in all 50 States, the District of Columbia,
Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
The purpose of URESA was to provide a system for the interstate
enforcement of support orders without requiring the person seeking
support to go (or have her legal representative go) to the State
in which the noncustodial parent resided. Where the URESA provisions
between the two States are compatible, the law can be used to establish
paternity, locate an absent parent, and establish, modify, or enforce
a support order across State lines.
|
| 1950 |
Social Security Act Amendments of
1950 (Public Law 81-734) |
The law required state welfare agencies
to notify law enforcement officials when providing AFDC to a child.
(Presumably, local officials would then undertake to locate nonresident
parents and make them pay child support).
The Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA) was approved.
(See above). |
| 1952 |
Amendment to URESA 1950 |
|
| 1958 |
Amendment to URESA 1950 |
|
| 1964 |
The Uniform Enforcement of Foreign
Judgments Act (UEFJA) |
Implemented by most states and DC.
Some relevance to child support orders. |
| 1965 |
Social Security Amendments of 1965
(Public Law 89-97) |
Allowed welfare agencies to obtain
addresses and employers of obligated parents from the U.S. Department
of Health, Education and Welfare. |
| 1967 |
Social Security Amendments of 1967
(Public Law 90-248) |
Allowed states access to IRS for
addresses of obligated parents. Each state was required to establish
a single child support unit for AFDC children.
States were required to work cooperatively. |
| 1968 |
Revision to URESA (RURESA) 1950 |
(Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement
of Support Act). |
| 1973 |
Uniform Parentage Act 1973 |
Rules for the presumption of parentage,
etc. Only adopted by a minority of states. Should be replaced by the
2000 Act. |
| 1974 - 1975 |
Social Security Amendments of 1974 (Public Law 93-647)
(Child Support and Establishment of Paternity Program)
|
A response by Congress to reduce public expenditures on welfare
by obtaining support from noncustodial parents on an ongoing basis,
to help non-AFDC families get support so they could stay off public
assistance, and to establish paternity for children born outside
marriage so child support could be obtained for them. Mandated that
the State plan for child support require States to cooperate with
other States in establishing paternity, locating absent parents,
and securing compliance with court orders.
Created (commencing January 1975) Title IV-D of the Social Security
Act, the child support program. The program was designed for cost
recovery of state and federal outlays on public assistance and for
cost avoidance to help families leave welfare and to help families
avoid turning to public assistance. This statute, as amended, authorizes
Federal matching funds to be used for enforcing support obligations
by locating nonresident parents, establishing paternity, establishing
child support awards, and collecting child support payments. This
established the basis of the CSES. It required every State to establish
a child support enforcement system. States had to establish special
agencies for the collection of child support payments due to recipients
of AFDC who were required to sign over to the state claims to child
support as a condition of eligibility. States were required to offer
similar services to non-AFDC cases if requested.
|
| 1976 |
(Public Law 94-566) |
Title V: Miscellaneous Provisions:
Requires that upon request of a public agency administering or supervising
the administration of a State plan approved under title IV (Grants
to States for Aid and Services to Needy Families with Children) of
the Social Security Act, shall furnish to such agency making the request,
information with respect to unemployment compensation, and refusal
by an individual to accept employment. (Required state employment
agencies to provide addresses of obligated parents to state child
support agencies). |
| 1977 |
(Public Law 95-30) |
Amended section 454 of the Social
Security Act relating to the garnishment of a federal employee’s
wages for child support. |
| 1980 |
Social Security Disability Amendments
of 1980
(Public Law 86-265) |
Provided state and local child support
agencies access to wage information held by the Social Security Administration
and state employment agencies for establishing and enforcing child
support obligations. |
| 1981 |
Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1981
(Public Law 97-35) |
1) IRS was authorized to withhold
tax refunds for delinquent child support;
2) IV-D agencies were required to collect spousal support for AFDC
families;
3) IV-D agencies were required to collect fees from parents delinquent
in child support;
4) obligations assigned to the state were no longer dischargeable
in bankruptcy proceedings; and
5) states were required to withhold a portion of unemployment for
delinquent support |
| 1984 |
Child Support Amendments of 1984 (Public Law 98-378)
(Mandated guidelines to be used in an advisory capacity).
|
Section 3 of the 1984 Child Support
Enforcement Amendments required every State’s child support enforcement
agency to establish procedures for automatically withholding income
from the pay and tax refunds of absentee parents, whenever their child
support payments fell into arrears of over one month, without having
to request court intervention. It also required States to establish
procedures imposing: "lines against real and personal property
for the amount of overdue support ... [and] Permitted states to extend
withholding to income other then wages, such as bonuses and commissions,
or dividends."
Additionally, Sections 15 and 18 required States to establish a committee
responsible for formulating child support award guidelines. Once established
these were to be provided to: "all judges and other officials
who have the power to determine child support awards within such State,
but need not be binding".
Required States to limit the role of the courts significantly by implementing
administrative or judicial expedited processes. States are required
to have quasi-judicial or administrative systems to expedite the process
for obtaining and enforcing a support order. |
| 1986 |
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1986 (Public Law 99-509) |
Required States to treat past due
support obligations as final judgments entitled to full faith and
credit in every State. Thus, a person who has a support order in one
State does not have to obtain a second order in another State to obtain
the money due should the debtor parent move from the issuing court's
jurisdiction. The second State can modify the order prospectively
if it finds that circumstances exist to justify a change, but the
second State may not retroactively modify a child support order. |
| 1987 |
Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act
1987 |
(Adopted by a minority of states).
Requires that child support be based in part on the financial resources
of both parents and in part on the standard of living the child would
have enjoyed had the marriage not been dissolved. |
| 1987 |
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1987 (Public Law 100-203) |
Required states to provide services
to families with an absent parent who receives Medicaid and have them
assign their support rights to the state. |
| 1988 |
1988 Family Support Act (Public
Law 100-485) |
Title I of the 1988 FSA implemented
a national Child Support Enforcement System based upon the uniform
application of a State-developed formula to ensure absent parents
were held responsible for maintaining their children. Section 101
requires every State to implement various procedures for immediate
and mandatory wage-withholding for all support orders being enforced
by the State’s CSEA.
This law required the appointment of an Assistant Secretary for Family
Support within DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services) to administer
the Child Support Enforcement Program.
Mandated that by 1994, states implement presumptive, rather than advisory,
guidelines.
Enacted "immediate" wage withholding. |
| 1990 |
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
1990 (Public Law 101-508) |
Permanently extended the federal
provision that allows states to ask the Internal Revenue Service to
deduct child support arrears of at least US$500 from tax refunds to
non-custodial parents. |
| 1992 |
Child Support Recovery Act of 1992
(Public Law 102-521) |
Imposed a Federal criminal penalty
for the willful failure to pay a past due child support obligation
to a child who resides in another State and that has remained unpaid
for longer than a year or is greater than $5,000. For the first conviction,
the penalty is a fine of up to $5,000, imprisonment for not more than
6 months, or both; for a second conviction, the penalty is a fine
of not more than $250,000, imprisonment for up to 2 years, or both. |
| 1992 |
Uniform Interstate Family Support
Act (UIFSA) |
It is designed to deal with desertion
and nonsupport by instituting uniform laws in all 50 States and the
District of Columbia. The core of UIFSA is limiting control of a child
support case to a single State, thereby ensuring that only one child
support order from one court or child support agency is in effect
at any given time. |
| 1993 |
Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
of 1993 (Public Law 103-66) |
Required states to establish paternity
on 75 percent of the children in their caseload instead of 50 percent.
States had to adopt civil procedures for voluntary acknowledgement
of paternity.
The law also required states to adopt laws to ensure the medical compliance
in orders. |
| 1994 |
Bankruptcy Reform Act 1994 (Public
Law 103-394) |
Protected child support from being
discharged in bankruptcy. It also provided protection against trustee
avoidance, facilitates access to bankruptcy proceedings, and assigns
child support a priority for collecting claims from debtors. |
| 1994 |
Full Faith and Credit for Child
Support Orders Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-383) |
This is binding in all the states
and supercedes any inconsistent provisions of state law. It restricts
a State court's ability to modify a child support order issued by
another State unless the child and the custodial parent have moved
to the State where the modification is sought or have agreed to the
modification. |
| 1994 |
Work and Responsibility Act of 1994
|
Included assisting states with child
support enforcement. |
| 1994 |
Small Business Administration Amendments
of 1994 (Public Law 103-403) |
Renders delinquent child support
payers ineligible for small business loans. |
| 1994 |
Social Security Act Amendments of
1994 (Public Law 103-432) |
Requires states to periodically
report debtor parents to consumer reporting agencies. |
| 1996 |
Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)
of 1996 (Public Law 104-193)
(Welfare reform law)
|
Under the new law, each State must
operate a CSE Program meeting Federal requirements in order to be
eligible for TANF funds (which replaced AFDC). This law made about
50 changes to the CSE Program, many of them major. These changes included
requiring States to increase the percentage of fathers identified,
establishing an integrated, automated network linking all States to
information about the location and assets of parents, requiring States
to implement more enforcement techniques, and revising the rules governing
the distribution of past due (arrearage) child support payments to
former recipients of public assistance.
Under the new law, states can implement tough child support enforcement
techniques such as withholding wages, seizing assets, and revoking
driving and professional licences of those parents who owe child support.
Set aside 1 percent of the Federal share of retained child support
collections for information dissemination and technical assistance
to States (including technical assistance related to automated systems),
training of State and Federal staff, staffing studies, and related
activities needed to improve the CSE Program, and research, demonstration,
and special projects of regional or national significance relating
to the operation of the CSE Program. An additional 2 percent of the
Federal share of retained child support collections is set aside for
the operation of the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS). Expanded
the scope of the FPLS to allow certain noncustodial parents to obtain
information regarding the location of the custodial parent.
Streamlines the paternity determination process.
Required all States to enact UIFSA (see below), including all amendments,
before January 1, 1998
Increased its access to information and maintaining its effort to
automate caseload processing. The legislation mandated that states
require employers to report all new hires within 20 days to child
support enforcement authorities. This new requirement was expected
to reduce the delay in establishing immediate wage withholding.
PRWORA also eliminated the federal requirement that states pass through
the first $50 of child support paid to welfare families. |
| 1996 |
Uniform
Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA) (1996) |
The Uniform Interstate Family Support
Act ("UIFSA") was drafted to more efficiently enforce the
child and spousal support orders as well as paternity judgments of
other states and countries. The prerequisite to enforce another country's
orders under UIFSA is that the country of origin must have a "law
or procedure substantially similar to UIFSA's, or one of UIFSA's precursors
-- the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act ("URESA")
and the Revised Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act ("RURESA").
|
| 1997 |
Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (Public
Law 105-33) |
Allows FPLS (Federal Parent Locator
Service) information to be disclosed to noncustodial parents except
in cases where there is evidence of domestic violence or child abuse
and the local court determines that disclosure may result in harm
to the custodial parent or child. |
| 1998 |
Child Support Performance and Incentive
Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-200) |
Provides penalties for failure to
meet data processing requirements, reforms incentive payments, and
provides penalties for violating inter-jurisdictional adoption requirements.
Incentive payments are based on paternityestablishment, order establishment,
current support collected, cases paying past due support, and cost
effectiveness and on a percentage of collections. Incentive payments
must be reinvested in the state's child support program. |
| 1998 |
Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act
of 1998 (Public Law 105-187) |
The law establishes two new categories
of felony offenses, subject to a 2-year maximum prison term. The offenses
are:
(1) traveling in interstate or foreign commerce with the intent to
evade a support obligation if the obligation has remained unpaid for
more than 1 year or is greater than $5,000; and
(2) willfully failing to pay a child support obligation regarding
a child residing in another State if the obligation has remained unpaid
for more than 2 years or is greater than $10,000. |
| 2000 |
Uniform
Parentage Act 2000 |
This has been drafted in the hope
that states will enact it and become more uniform in their approach
to parentage, and especially paternity. Among other things, it emphasises
genetic testing, but also recognises the strength of acknowledgement
of paternity. Morgan. |
| 2002-12-12 |
Australia
and the United States entered into a treaty for reciprocal recognition
and enforcement of child support maintenance arrangements. |
This new treaty allows administrative
assessments made under the Australian Child Support Scheme to be recognised
and enforced in the United States. Another feature of the treaty is
that each country will have a central authority which will take responsibility
for coordinating all agencies involved in a case. In Australia's case,
that central authority will be the Child Support Registrar. |
| Present day |
| The following is provided
to show just how resistant the USA is towards adopting international
treaties and conventions relating in some way to child support. The
USA continues to pursue its own approach towards the common objectives
of reducing child poverty and reducing welfare spending. (Part of
this may be because states, rather than the federal government, have
historically had the jurisdiction for family matters). |
| 2002? |
United
Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women |
Being considered by Congress.
(In fact, this has little to do with child support).
|
| Not
under active consideration for ratification. |
United
Nations Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance |
(Is this what the State Department
calls "United Nations Convention on International Family Support
(1956)"? I suspect it is). |
| Not ratified. |
United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child |
(May
2002): The most significant contradiction between the convention
and U.S. law and practice is in relation to the death penalty. The
Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits the use of the death
penalty for offenses committed before the age of eighteen. However,
twenty-two U.S. states allow executions of juvenile offenders, and
currently there are eighty-two juvenile offenders on death row in
the United States. In the last five years, nine executions of juvenile
offenders were carried out in the United States, and two more are
scheduled in the next month. The Democratic Republic of Congo and
Iran are the only other states to have carried out such executions
in the last three years. |
| Not
under active consideration for ratification. |
The following Hague Conventions: |
#8 on
the law applicable to maintenance obligations towards children
#9 concerning
the recognition and enforcement of decisions relating to maintenance
obligations towards children
#23 on
the Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions Relating to Maintenance
Obligations
#24 on
the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations
|