Moms Without Orders

The Cen­sus Bureau shared detailed data on child sup­port agree­ments in a May 2020 report. It notes that:

• Near­ly half of the 12.9 mil­lion cus­to­di­al par­ents nation­wide had a court order, child sup­port award or some oth­er type of agree­ment in place to receive finan­cial sup­port from the non­cus­to­di­al parent(s) in 2018.
• Of the 6.4 mil­lion cus­to­di­al par­ents with child sup­port agree­ments, 88% report­ed hav­ing legal orders while the remain­ing 12% per­cent report­ed hav­ing infor­mal agreements.
• 7.1 mil­lion cus­to­di­al par­ents lacked a legal child sup­port agree­ment of any type in 2018.
• Among cus­to­di­al par­ents with­out a legal agree­ment in place, the top three rea­sons that they gave for for­go­ing a legal con­tract were: 1. They did­n’t feel it was nec­es­sary (39%); 2. The oth­er par­ent pro­vid­ed what he or she could for sup­port (38%); and 3. They did not think the oth­er par­ent could afford to pay child sup­port (30%).
• As of 2018: Near­ly 21% of cus­to­di­al par­ents had con­tact­ed the gov­ern­ment for assis­tance. This out­reach includ­ed con­tact with child sup­port enforce­ment offices, state depart­ment of social ser­vices, or oth­er wel­fare or TANF offices for child sup­port-relat­ed assistance.

A sep­a­rate Cen­sus Bureau report, released in 2021, notes that receiv­ing a child sup­port pay­ment is strong­ly asso­ci­at­ed with hav­ing a child sup­port agree­ment in place. Over half (57%) of par­ents with agree­ments received pay­ments in 2017.