Title IV-D Child Support Program Sample Clauses

Title IV-D Child Support Program. The Title IV-D child support program is intended to provide federal funds to help state executive branch child support agencies carry out their services.91 For children in single-parent households, child support can be a crucial benefit when the payments are prop- erly established and directed to the benefit of the children. Courts are supposed to carefully and impartially consider the circum- stances of the parents and children to establish child support or- ders that obligors have the ability to pay, and only order the use of enforcement mechanisms when in the best interests of the chil- dren. If courts are financially incentivized to increase collections and use enforcement tools regardless of the children’s interests, harm can result—to the parents, children, and to society.92 Further, over $24 billion in child support debt across the country is owed to the government rather than to children,93 and courts receive even greater financial incentives to order and enforce such state-owed support obligations. Child support is converted to a state-owed obligation in multi- ple ways. First, when struggling custodial parents seek welfare assis- tance, states force the parents to assign their child support rights to the government to pay back the costs of the assistance. Also, states will simultaneously pursue “medical support” payments as part of the support obligation to offset the cost of Medicaid.94 States re-