Parent will not pay child support

Parental obligation
Regardless of marital status, both parents are responsible for providing for the care and well-being of their children. However, court-ordered child support obligations are often ignored. Far too often, the issue of child support becomes a battlefield on which the custodial parent and the noncustodial parent struggle for control.

Prior to 1990, it was possible for a parent to avoid paying child support by moving from one state to another. Since local courts had no jurisdiction beyond state boundaries, a warrant for abandonment was not enforceable outside the state. In 1992, The Child Support Recovery Act was passed to impose a federal criminal penalty for the willful failure to pay a past-due child support obligation. This Act made it possible for collectors to extradite a parent across state lines for abandonment and failure to pay child support.

In fiscal year 1999, as a direct result of this act, the child support enforcement program forced 2.8 million parents who were delinquent in child support payments to pay $15.5 billion for support of their children. Although this nearly doubled the amount collected in 1992, it was $5.8 billion less than the amount of child support that was due.

There are 14 million custodial parents in the United States who are raising unmarried children under the age of 21. About 10 million of these parents are women. The families they maintain comprise about one-third of all households with children under age 21.

One third of custodial mothers and one third of custodial fathers do not have a child support order because they did not file for one. This happens when a never-married custodial parent moves on to other relationships or marriage and no longer wants his or her children involved with the other parent. It also might involve situations of abuse and one parent wants to keep his or her children away from the other parent. Other reasons for not having a support order include parents who agree to share joint custody and responsibility for support and custodial parents who aren't granted support because they have higher incomes than that of their children’s noncustodial parents.

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