Paternity Establishment: Child Support and Beyond

Report for Congress
Paternity Establishment:
Child Support and Beyond
June 24, 2002
Carmen Solomon-Fears
Specialist in Social Legislation
Domestic Social Policy Division

Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

Paternity Establishment: Child Support and Beyond
Summary
The public policy interest in paternity establishment is based in part on the
dramatic increase in nonmarital births. The poorest demographic group in the United
States consists of children in single-parent families. In 2000, 33.1% of all U.S. births
were to unmarried women, compared to 3.9% in 1950. Moreover, in FY2000, 51.9%
of the children in the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) caseload (which includes
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and certain other welfare families
and non-welfare families who apply for CSE services) were born outside of marriage.
The percentage of CSE children who were born outside of marriage varied by state,
ranging from 7.8% in Kansas (4% in Puerto Rico) to 79.8% in Delaware.
The main goals of the CSE program are to reduce spending on actual and
potential recipients of public welfare by obtaining ongoing support from noncustodial
parents; and to establish paternity for children born outside of marriage so that child
support can be obtained. Most experts now agree that use of highly reliable DNA
tests greatly increases the likelihood of correct identification of putative fathers.
DNA tests can be used either to exclude unlikely fathers or to establish a high
likelihood that a given man is the father.
With more paternities being established each year than children being born
outside of marriage, progress is being made in reducing the number of children who
do not have legally established fathers. Nonetheless, Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE) data indicate that in FY2000, paternity had been established
or acknowledged for only about 65% of the 10.1 million children on the CSE
caseload who were born outside of marriage. Some proposals or programs that may
increase the numbers of paternities established include: voluntary acknowledgment
of paternity especially via hospital-based programs (which increased 781%, from
78,129 in FY1994 to 688,510 in FY2000); a renewed emphasis on older children
perhaps through media campaigns; continued outreach to fathers acknowledging their
importance to their children; and more cooperation between parents and the CSE
agencies. Although many paternity concerns are intermingled with the effectiveness
of the CSE program, some are beyond the scope of the CSE program.
This report provides background information on paternity establishment, gives
a detailed analysis of the paternity establishment process, describes federal CSE and
TANF provisions related to paternity establishment, discusses some policy options
to increase the numbers of paternities established, and examines some of the issues
related to the establishment of paternity. Specifically, this report examines how
genetic testing developments have added to the complexity of determining what is
in the best interest of the child and presented challenges to the historical precept of
presumed fatherhood in the case of married couples. In addition, Appendix A
provides a legislative history of provisions related to paternity establishment. This
report does not attempt to tackle any of the legal issues concerning parentage that
arise from the new reproductive technologies, such as the legal standing of sperm
donors, egg donors, or surrogate mothers. This report will not be updated.

Contents
Overview ........................................................1
Paternity Establishment Process......................................3
Presumptive Paternity for Married Couples..........................4
Voluntary Paternity Acknowledgment..............................4
Contested Paternity............................................6
Genetic Tests.................................................7
Paternity Provisions in the CSE Program..............................10
Paternity Establishment Requirements............................11
Paternity/Fatherhood Provisions in the TANF Program...................14
Cooperation Requirements......................................14
Fatherhood Initiatives.........................................15
TANF Marriage and Two-Parent Family Goals.....................16
Policy Options To Increase the Level of Paternity Establishment............17
Cooperation Between Parents and CSE Agencies....................17
Fatherhood Grant Programs.....................................19
In-Hospital Paternity Establishment..............................19
Identifying the Fathers of Older Children..........................21
Other Paternity Issues.............................................23
Paternity of Marital Children....................................23
Fathers’ Rights and Concerns...................................24
Mothers’ Rights and Concerns...................................27
Best Interests of the Child......................................28
Concluding Remarks..........................................29
Appendix A.....................................................35
Legislative History of Paternity Establishment Provisions.................35
P.L. 90-248, the Social Security Amendments of 1967................35
P.L. 93-647, the Social Security Amendments of 1974................35
P.L. 94-88, Tariff Amendments, Amendments to Social Security
Act – 1975..............................................35
P.L. 98-378, the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984......35
P.L. 100-485, the Family Support Act of 1988......................36
P.L. 103-66, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993..........36
P.L. 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of 1996.................................37
P.L. 105-33, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997......................38

List of Tables
Table 1. CSE Children Born Outside of Marriage, FY2000................31
Table 2. Paternities Established Through the CSE Program and
Statewide, FY2000............................................33

Paternity Establishment:
Child Support and Beyond
Overview
A child born outside of marriage has a biological father but not a legal father.
Paternity establishment refers to the legal determination of fatherhood for a child.
In 2000, 33.1% of all births in the United States were to unmarried women, adding
approximately 1.3 million new children to the list of children needing to have
paternity established. Data from the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE)
indicate that in 2000 the total number of children in the Child Support Enforcement¹
(CSE) caseload who were born outside of marriage amounted to about 10.1 million.
Paternity has been established or acknowledged for about 6.5 million of these
children (1.6 million during FY2000), leaving nearly 3.6 million children in the CSE
caseload without a legally identified father.
Paternity establishment is not an end in itself, but rather a prerequisite to
obtaining ongoing economic support (i.e., child support) from the other
(noncustodial) parent.² Moreover, in addition to financial benefits, establishing
paternity can provide social, psychological, and emotional benefits to the child and
in some cases the father’s medical history may be needed to give a child proper care.
Paternity is presumed if a child is conceived within marriage. In other words,
the husband is presumed to be the father of a child born to his wife. In cases in
which the child is born outside of marriage paternity can be voluntarily
acknowledged or it can be contested. It would be contested in cases in which the
mother does not want to establish paternity, thereby forcing the father to take his case
to court to assert his rights, the biological father does not want to pay child support
and denies paternity to delay establishment of a child support order, or the alleged
father has genuine doubt about his paternity. If paternity is contested it is generally
resolved through either an administrative process or a judicial proceeding.

¹ The following families automatically qualify for CSE services (free of charge): families
receiving (or who formerly received) Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
benefits (Title IV-A), foster care payments, or Medicaid coverage. Other families must
apply for CSE services, and states must charge an application fee that cannot exceed $25.
In FY2000, the CSE caseload consisted of 17.4 million cases, of which 3.3 million were
TANF cases; 8.0 million were former-TANF cases, and 6.2 million had never been on
TANF.
² In 1997 (latest available data), 47% of divorced parents living with children under age 21
whose other parent was not living in the home received child support payments; the
comparable statistic for never-married parents was 22%.

The public policy interest in paternity establishment is based in part on the
dramatic increase in nonmarital births and the economic status of single mothers and
their children. The poorest demographic group in the U.S. consists of children in
single-parent families. In 2000, 33.1% of all U.S. births were to unmarried women
compared to 3.9% in 1950.³ Moreover, in FY2000, 51.9% of the children in the
CSE caseload were born outside of marriage. The percentage of CSE children who
were born outside of marriage varied by state, ranging from 7.8% in Kansas (4% in
Puerto Rico) to 79.8% in Delaware. (See Table 1, p. 30.) Concerns about the
dependency and poverty of single-parent families led to increased incentives to
establish more paternities, financial penalties for failing to establish a specified
percentage of paternities, a wide array of enforcement tools with which to collect
child support payments, and continued focus on the adequacy of child support
payments. In addition, the more recent emphasis on personal responsibility has
focused on the benefits of involving noncustodial parents in the lives of their
children.
Fathers are an important source of nurturance andPaternity establishmentgenerally is seen as a means to
emotional security for their infants, as well as apromote the social goals of (1)
critical source of support for the mother-infant
attachment. For the fathers themselves, caring for aproviding for the basic
child is a transforming experience that often leads tofinancial support of all minor
personal growth, motivation, and in turn, improvedchildren regardless of the
economic security. As children grow, their fathers’marital status of their parents,
active engagement in their lives enhances their(2) ensuring equity in
chances for academic success, a healthy genderassessing parental liability for
identity, clear values and moral development, andthe financial support of their
ultimately greater success in both family and work.children, and (3) promoting
^S^o^u^r^{ce: Of}^fⁱ^{ce of}^C^h^{ild S}^u^{pport En}^f^o^rcem^en^t^.^DHHS^.responsibility for theconsequences of one’s
^C^hⁱ^l^d^Suppor^t^Repor^t^{, v}^.^{XXIII, n}^o^{. 6, Ju}ⁿ^e^{2000. p. 3}⁴
actions.
The federal government reimburses each state 66% of the cost of all allowable
expenditures on CSE activities. Allowable expenditures include outlays for locating
parents, establishing paternity (at an enhanced matching rate), establishing child
support orders, and collecting and distributing payments. In addition to the general
federal matching rate of 66%, the federal government provides 90% matching for
laboratory costs of genetic testing. Congress justified enhanced funding of genetic
tests because paternity establishment is an activity vital to successful child support
enforcement.
This report provides background information on paternity establishment, gives
a detailed analysis of the paternity establishment process, describes federal CSE and

³ Among population groups, the percentage of births to unmarried black women was 68.5%
in 2000; the comparable statistics for white women and Hispanic women were 27.1% and

42.5%, respectively.

⁴ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Child Support Enforcement.
Benefits of Establishing Paternity, by Laurene T. McKillop with preface by Judith Cassetty.
June 1981, reprinted September 1985. p. ix-xii.

Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) provisions related to paternity
establishment, discusses some policy options to increase the number of paternities
established, and examines some of the issues related to the establishment of paternity.
In addition, Appendix A provides a legislative history of federal provisions related
to paternity establishment.
Paternity Establishment Process
Legally identifying the father is a prerequisite for obtaining a child support
order. States generally follow a standard sequence of events in determining paternity.
States are required to have procedures which permit the establishment of the
paternity of a child at any time before the child reaches age 18.
Although federal CSE law requires states to implement certain administrative
processes (e.g., voluntary acknowledgment) to establish paternity, most states use
both administrative and judicial methods of paternity establishment. Although the
court is generally the final arbiter of deciding paternity in contested cases, the level
of court involvement in CSE paternity establishment practices varies. Some states
use the courts only for the most difficult contested paternity cases, others require
routine judicial approval for all paternity determinations.
According to an HHS Inspector General report, 25 states primarily use quasi-
administrative paternity establishment procedures, such as encouraging
acknowledgment or other mutual parental consent, often following genetic testing.⁵
Quasi-administrative methods primarily rely on the actions and authority of the CSE
agency, but also allow limited court involvement. The HHS Inspector General report
indicated that the following were characteristic of quasi-administrative procedures:
paternity establishment may occur with little or no court involvement; the CSE
agency primarily determines the procedures used to determine paternity; voluntary
acknowledgment is binding without court approval; genetic tests may be order by the
CSE agency without court approval; default orders of paternity may be created with
little or no court involvement; and initial hearings and conflict resolution are⁶
conducted by the CSE agency. Proponents of the quasi-administrative approach
argue that it is easier for parents to understand and for CSE workers to facilitate, and
that it is quicker, more routine, and less subjective than judicial procedures.
Before the enactment of the CSE program and the operation of CSE agencies,
parents who wanted to establish paternity generally had to hire an attorney and appeal
to the courts. State courts still are an integral to the establishment of paternity in
many states. The HHS Inspector General report indicates that 26 states primarily use
quasi-judicial procedures, under which paternity actions begin and end in the courts.
Even under quasi-judicial procedures, the CSE agency generally has the

⁵ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Inspector General.
Paternity Establishment–Administrative and Judicial Methods. April 2000, OEI-06-98-

00050. p. ii [http://www.dhhs.gov/progorg/oei]

⁶ Ibid., p. 10.

responsibility of shepherding cases through the court system by obtaining initial
information on the alleged father, locating absent parents, completing necessary
paperwork, and enforcing court mandates. The HHS Inspector General report
indicated that the following were characteristic of quasi-judicial procedures: paternity
cases require court approval or are often resolved through the courts; state court
determines in part the procedures used to establish paternity; voluntary
acknowledgment may require court approval prior to initiation of a child support
order; genetic testing mandates require a court order; default orders of paternity
require a court order; and hearings and conflict resolution are typically conducted by
the courts.⁷ Proponents of this approach contend that limited involvement of the
courts does not slow down the paternity establishment process, and maintain that
court action is regarded more seriously by parents and provides a more solid
foundation for collection of child support. The Inspector General report found that
some states create duplicative processes involving both the courts and the CSE
agency that are cumbersome and cause unnecessary delays in the paternity
establishment process. It said this occurred, in part because both state CSE agencies
and courts may fail to accept administrative paternity establishments as valid.⁸
Presumptive Paternity for Married Couples
It is generally the case that if a child is born to a married couple, the wife’s
husband is presumed to be the baby’s father. The precept of presumed fatherhood
in the case of a married couple generally is considered to be in the best interest of the
child, the stability of marriages, and the public (i.e., child would be less likely to need
welfare assistance).⁹ The exception occurs when a husband can prove that he is not
the biological father of his wife’s child by showing that he could not have had
intercourse with his wife at the probable time of conception because, for example,
he was sterile or impotent, in the military service, or in jail. In these types of
situations in which paternity is contested, genetic testing is usually conducted.
Courts generally have discouraged paternity cases between married couples unless
one of the above exceptions can be proven. For children born outside of marriage,
paternity must be acknowledged or established.
Voluntary Paternity Acknowledgment
State experience and several studies have shown that many men will voluntarily
acknowledge paternity if given the opportunity. When paternity is established
voluntarily with the cooperation of both parents, the cost, conflict, and delays of
contested cases can be avoided. The voluntary acknowledgment process is available
at any time to any father who wants to voluntarily acknowledge paternity. Even if
a man is initially reluctant to voluntarily acknowledge parentage because he is unsure
whether he actually is the father, he may be willing to do so after receiving genetic

⁷ Ibid., p. 13.
⁸ Ibid., p. ii
⁹ Center for Law and Social Policy. Biology and Beyond: The Case for Passage of the New
Uniform Parentage Act, by Paula Roberts with assistance from Nicole Williams. October

2000. p. 14.

test results which indicate a high probability of paternity. Thus, it has proven to be
very beneficial for states to provide fathers with multiple opportunities to voluntarily
acknowledge paternity.
Federal CSE law requires states to have laws and procedures for a simple civil
process for voluntarily acknowledging paternity. Under such a process, the state is
required to ensure that the rights and responsibilities of acknowledging paternity are
explained to both parents and that due process safeguards are afforded to both
parents. States may choose various simple civil methods for obtaining voluntary
acknowledgments. The statute requires that voluntary acknowledgment procedures
include hospital-based programs that focus on the period immediately before or after
the birth of a child.
Each state is required to use a paternity acknowledgment affidavit that includes,
at a minimum, the current full name of mother, father and child; Social Security
number of mother and father; date of birth of mother, father and child; address of
mother and father; birthplace of the child; a brief explanation of the legal significance
of signing a voluntary paternity affidavit and a statement that both parents have 60
days to rescind the paternity acknowledgment affidavit; a clear statement signed by
both parents indicating they understand that signing the paternity acknowledgment
affidavit is voluntary and that they understand their rights, responsibilities, the
alternatives and consequences; signature lines for mother and father; and signature
lines for witnesses or notaries.
These requirements are meant to ensure that states’ voluntary acknowledgments
share certain common elements. If every voluntary acknowledgment contains these
basic elements, states will be able to legally recognize and act upon
acknowledgments obtained in other states, which should improve interstate case
processing. A state is required to give “full faith and credit” to acknowledgments
signed in other states if they contain the information required by federal standards
and that have been filed in compliance with the procedures required by the state in
which they were signed.¹⁰ In addition, the Social Security numbers and addresses
may provide valuable information to help locate noncustodial parents and help
identify income sources.
States are required to have laws and procedures for filing voluntary
acknowledgments with either the state CSE agency or a centralized state agency that
provides the state CSE agency access to copies of, and identifying information on,
the acknowledgments. If the agency is not the CSE agency, it may be the vital
statistics agency, a registry of putative fathers, or some other type of registry or
agency. Instead of allowing a state to have multiple filing agencies (such as local
courts), federal law requires that the filing agency be a centralized entity so that it

¹⁰ Section 466(a)5(C)(iv) of the Social Security Act requires states to implement laws that
require the state to develop and use an affidavit for the voluntary acknowledgment of
paternity which includes minimum specified requirements, and to give full faith and credit
to such an affidavit signed in any other state according to its procedures. “Full faith and
credit” means that a valid affidavit is enforceable where it is issued and in all other
jurisdictions.

will be easier to match acknowledgments with CSE cases and to control access to the
acknowledgments.
The 1996 welfare reform law also stipulated that in the case of unmarried
parents, the father’s name shall not appear on the birth certificate unless he has
signed a voluntary acknowledgment or a court has issued an adjudication of paternity.
The National Women’s Law Center and the Center on Fathers have cautioned
that paternity establishment may have legal consequences outside of child support:
In addition to having information about the direct consequences of paternity
establishment, both parents need to be aware that, in certain circumstances,
establishing paternity may have legal consequences that are unrelated to the issue
of child support, custody and visitation. Staff who are involved in voluntary
paternity establishment need to be aware of these consequences and alert parents
to them. For example, the establishment of paternity may, in some states, impose
liability for child support on a child’s grandparents. A mother who is seeking
TANF assistance while cohabiting with the father of her child may be
committing, under certain circumstances, an act of welfare fraud. Establishing
paternity may in some cases alert law enforcement authorities to the location of
individuals who are being sought under a warrant. Establishing paternity may
subject some parents to charges of statutory rape. Establishing paternity may¹¹
prevent some parents from successfully adjusting their immigration status.
Contested Paternity
In cases where paternity is not voluntarily acknowledged, the mother of a child¹²
generally will make an allegation of paternity to either the court or the CSE agency.
The CSE agency generally will locate the alleged father and bring him to court or
before an administrative agency where he can either acknowledge or dispute
paternity.¹³ If a man claims he is not the father, the court or administrative agency
can require that he submit to parentage (i.e., genetic) testing to establish the
probability that he is the father. Through the use of genetic testing techniques, a man

¹¹ National Women’s Law Center and the Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy.
Family Ties: Improving Paternity Establishment Practices and Procedures for Low-Income
Mothers, Fathers, and Children. November 2000. p. 18 and 23. Note: One consequence
of the “good moral character” test for becoming a U.S. citizen is that it encourages the
mother to seek paternity establishment, but can discourage a low-income father from
admitting paternity, especially if he does not have the financial ability to pay child support,
because not paying child support is equated with lacking “good moral character.”
¹² In cases in which the mother is receiving CSE services (regardless of whether or not she
is on welfare (TANF)), the CSE agency will initiate contact with the alleged father
administratively or through the courts after the mother has provided the requested
information regarding the child’s father. In non-CSE cases, the mother would provide the
information to the court (generally via an attorney).
¹³ The CSE agency need not attempt to establish paternity in any case involving incest or
forcible rape, or in any case in which legal proceedings for adoption are pending, if, in the
opinion of the CSE agency, it would not be in the best interests of the child to establish
paternity.

may be excluded as a possible biological father, in which case no further action
against him is warranted.
If the putative (alleged) father is not excluded on the basis of the scientific test
results, authorities still may conclude on the basis of witnesses, resemblance, and
other evidence that they do not have sufficient evidence to establish paternity and,
therefore drop the paternity allegation. Tests resulting in nonexclusion may serve to
convince the putative father that he is, in fact, the father. If this occurs, a voluntary
admission often leads to a formal court order. When authorities believe there is
enough evidence to support the mother’s allegation, but the putative father continues
to deny the paternity charges, the case proceeds to a formal adjudication of paternity
in a court of law. Using the results of the blood tests and other evidence, the court
or the CSE agency, often through an administrative process, may dismiss the case or
enter an order of paternity, a prerequisite to obtaining a court order requiring a
noncustodial parent to pay child support.
Genetic Tests
Most states use one or more of several scientific methods for establishing
paternity. These include: red blood cell antigen testing, human leukocyte antigen
(HLA) testing, red cell enzyme and serum protein electrophoresis, and
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing.¹⁴ The 1996 welfare reform law mandates that
states have and use procedures by which genetic test results can be admitted as
evidence of paternity without the need for additional testimony or other proof of
accuracy (unless an objection is made). For states to take advantage of this procedure
in contested cases, the test must be of a type generally acknowledged as reliable by
an HHS- approved accreditation body and be performed by a laboratory approved by
the accreditation body.¹⁵ The laboratory is required to issue a report accompanied by
documentation that establishes the chain of custody of the specimens.
Genetic tests generally are performed on small samples of blood collected from
the mother, the child, and the alleged father. There are two types of testing
procedures for paternity cases: (1) probability of exclusion tests, and (2) probability
of paternity tests. Probability of exclusion testing can exclude 95%-99% of falsely-
accused men. In other words, the test generally is able to determine that a man is
“not” the father of a given child.¹⁶ Thus, there is a very high probability the test will

¹⁴ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of Child Support Enforcement.
Genetic Testing for Paternity Establishment. September 1993.
¹⁵ State CSE agencies are required to contract with genetic testing laboratories to perform
paternity tests to resolve disputed paternity of children born to unmarried parents. The
laboratory must perform, at reasonable costs, tests that are legally and medically acceptable
for identifying or excluding an alleged father. In support of this effort, the Office of Child
Support Enforcement (OCSE) has compiled the fourth edition of the Directory of Genetic
Testing Laboratories which was disseminated to states in November 2000. The purpose of
the directory is to help states identify laboratories which perform legally and medically
acceptable genetic tests at reasonable costs.
¹⁶ If, for example, the rate of exclusion is 95% and the alleged father cannot be excluded,
(continued...)

exonerate a falsely-accused man. The exclusion probability has nothing to do with
the likelihood that a nonexcluded man may be the father. Probability of paternity
testing examines the similarities between the alleged father’s blood and the child’s
and a calculation is made regarding the statistical likelihood of paternity based on the
chance of such similarities occurring in a random male in the general population.
Probability of paternity testing generally can determine with almost 100% probability
that a man is the father of a given child.
Given that questions regarding paternity essentially can be answered
scientifically, it is important that the verification process include available advanced
scientific technology. Most experts now agree that use of highly reliable DNA tests
greatly increases the likelihood of correct identification of putative fathers. DNA
tests can be used either to exclude unlikely fathers or to establish a high likelihood
that a given man is the father of a child. DNA profiling allows for direct examination
of the genetic material that a child inherited from its biological parents. During the
testing process, the genetic characteristics of a child are first compared to those of his
or her mother. The characteristics that cannot be found in the mother must have been
inherited from the biological father. If the tested man does not contain the genetic
characteristics necessary to be the biological father of the child, he is excluded. If the
DNA of the tested man does contain those genetic characteristics, then the man
cannot be excluded and the probability that the tested man is the true biological father
can be calculated. One expert, speaking at a child support conference, summed up
the effectiveness of DNA testing as follows:
The DNA fingerprinting technique promises far superior reliability than current
blood grouping or human leukocyte antigen analyses. The probability of an
unrelated individual sharing the same patterns is practically zero. The “DNA
fingerprinting” test, developed in England in 1985, refines the favorable statistics
to an even greater degree, reducing the probability that two unrelated individuals¹⁷
will have the same DNA fingerprint to one in a quadrillion.
DNA testing is an improvement over other forms of testing because the
laboratory technician can (1) use samples from fetuses, newborns or corpses (in HLA
testing, one must wait 6 to 12 months after a child is born before testing the child’s
immunological system); (2) use samples that are over 48 hours old; (3) use smaller
samples that can come from a greater variety of body parts (tissue, blood, and hair
versus blood only); and (4) achieve a higher level of statistical confidence in the¹⁸
conclusions reached.
Federal law requires states to implement procedures which create a rebuttable
or, at the option of the state, conclusive presumption of paternity upon genetic testing

¹⁶ (...continued)
he must fall within the 5% of the population who could have, with the mother in the case,
produced a child with the unique genetic makeup shown by the testing.
¹⁷ Georgeson, L.M. DNA in Paternity Cases. Paper presented at the American Bar
Association Third National Child support Conference, Arlington, VA, May 1989. p. 568.
¹⁸ U.S. Commission on Interstate Child Support. Supporting Our Children: A Blueprint for
Reform. 1992. p. 133.

results indicating a threshold probability of the alleged father being the father of the
child. DNA testing can result in a paternity probability of 99.9%,¹⁹ making most
arguments by putative fathers to rebut test results unconvincing.
The state CSE agency has the power (without the need for permission from a
court or administrative tribunal) to order genetic tests in appropriate CSE cases.
These CSE agencies also must recognize and enforce the ability of other state CSE
agencies to take such actions. In any case in which the CSE agency ordered the tests,
the state must pay the initial costs. The state is allowed to recoup the cost from the
father if paternity is established. If the original test result is contested, further testing
can be ordered by the CSE agency if the contestant pays the cost in advance.
Genetic testing for the child, mother, and alleged father usually costs between
$300-$700. Once all of the specimens (blood samples) have been received at the
laboratory, it generally takes about two weeks before the results are available. The
federal government reimburses each state 90% of the laboratory costs of establishing
paternity; non-laboratory costs associated with paternity establishment are
reimbursed at the general 66% federal matching rate. In FY2000, states in the
aggregate spent $32.2 million on laboratory tests associated with the process of
determining paternity.
According to a 1999 HHS Inspector General report, some CSE agencies practice
the following procedures to eliminate or remove barriers to the effective use of
genetic testing: (1) collection of DNA samples from child, alleged father, and mother
at the local CSE office, thereby avoiding future delays and transportation problems;
and (2) use of buccal swab (i.e., cheek cells) sampling, instead of drawing blood,
thereby alleviating some clients’ fear of needles as a barrier to genetic testing. In
addition, to eliminate expense as a concern for putative fathers’ use of genetic testing,
some states do not seek to recoup testing costs, or they allow local staff discretion to
waive recoupment. However, few areas in the country appear to use all of these
strategi es.²⁰
Widespread availability of inexpensive and reliable genetic tests streamlines
paternity establishment by reducing the need for extensive fact finding and
minimizing drawn-out litigation. This helps states establish support orders for more
children and ensure that the obligor (i.e., person owing child support) really is the
child’s biological father. However, it also should be noted that advances in genetic
testing have contributed to an unanticipated increase in disestablishment actions.
While most courts are reluctant to disturb the marital presumption of paternity, some
are willing to vacate an order that determines the paternity of an out-of-wedlock child

¹⁹ When siblings are named, multiple tests may have to be performed to achieve this level
of accuracy and if identical siblings are parties in the paternity suit certainty may never be
resolved based on test results alone.
²⁰ U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Inspector General.
Paternity Establishment – State Use of Genetic Testing. September 1999, OEI-06-98-00054

when genetic test evidence later shows that the legal father is not the child’s
biological father.²¹
Paternity Provisions in the CSE Program
The CSE program, enacted in 1975 under title IV-D of the Social Security Act
(P.L. 93-647), was established largely because Congress was concerned about the
close connection between welfare dependency and the absence of fathers. The Senate
Finance Committee report on H.R. 17045, which included child support enforcement
provisions that subsequently became the basis of the CSE law, contained the
following statements.
The Committee is concerned at the extent to which the dependency on AFDC is
a result of the increasing number of children on the rolls who were born out of
wedlock and for whom parental support is not being provided because the
identity of the father has not been determined. The Committee believes that an
AFDC child has a right to have its paternity ascertained in a fair and efficient
manner unless identification of the father is clearly against the best interests of
the child. Although this may in some cases conflict with what a social worker
considers the mothers’ short-term interests, the Committee feels that the child’s
right to support, inheritance, and to know who his father is deserves the higher²²
social priority.
The main goals of the CSE program are to reduce spending on actual and
potential recipients of public welfare by obtaining support from noncustodial parents
on an ongoing basis; and to establish paternity for children born outside of marriage
so that child support can be obtained. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam,
Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands operate CSE programs and are entitled to federal
matching funds.
Federal CSE law, which applies to all welfare (TANF) families and also to non-
welfare families who apply for CSE services, generally (1) requires that paternity be
established for 90% of the CSE cases needing such a determination (up from the 50%
level set in 1988 and the 75% level set in 1993), (2) establishes a simple civil process
for establishing paternity, (3) requires a uniform affidavit to be completed by men
voluntarily acknowledging paternity and entitles such affidavits to full faith and
credit in any state, (4) stipulates that a signed acknowledgment of paternity be
considered a legal finding of paternity unless rescinded within 60 days, and thereafter
may be challenged in court only on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of
fact, (5) provides that no judicial or administrative action is needed to ratify an
acknowledgment that is not challenged, (6) requires all parties to submit to genetic

²¹ Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). OCSE Litigation Report, Chapter 4.
Paternity Litigation. [www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/pubs/reports/litigation/ch04.html]
p. 2 of 17
²² U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance. Social Services Amendments of 1974,
report to accompany H.R. 17045. Senate Report No. 93-1356. p. 51.

testing in contested paternity cases, and (7) authorizes the establishment of paternity
for any child under age 18 who does not have a legally identified father.
Paternity Establishment Requirements
As noted above, states are required to meet federal standards for the
establishment of paternity (Section 452(g) of the Social Security Act). In
determining compliance, a state may use as its paternity establishment percentage
either (1) the state’s CSE paternity establishment percentage or (2) the state’s
statewide paternity establishment percentage.
The state CSE paternity establishment percentage is based on the entire number
of children in the CSE caseload who had been born out of wedlock, regardless of year
of birth, and whether paternity had been established for them; whereas, the state’s
statewide paternity establishment percentage is based on births and paternities
established in a single year.
The state’s CSE paternity establishment percentage is obtained by dividing the
total number of children in the state’s CSE caseload in the fiscal year who were born
out of wedlock, and for whom paternity has been established or acknowledged by the
total number of children in the state’s CSE caseload at the end of the preceding fiscal
year who are born out of wedlock (regardless of year of birth). For example, in
FY2000, there were 987,267 children in California’s CSE program who had been
born outside of marriage and also had paternity established on their behalf, and at the
end of FY1999, there were 1,527,959 children in California’s CSE program who had
been born outside of marriage. California’s CSE paternity establishment percentage
was therefore 64.6% in FY2000. In other words, 64.6% of the children in
California’s CSE program who had been born outside of marriage had legally-
identified fathers in FY2000.
The state’s statewide paternity establishment percentage is obtained by dividing
the total number of minor children in the state who were born out of wedlock and for
whom paternity has been established or acknowledged during the fiscal year by the
total number of children in the state who were born out of wedlock during the
preceding fiscal year. For example, during FY2000, paternity was established or
acknowledged for 306,508 children born in FY2000 in California; whereas, during
FY1999, 170,607 children were born outside of marriage in California. California’s
statewide paternity establishment percentage was thereby 179.7% in FY2000. In
other words, the number of paternities established in California in FY2000 for
children born in FY2000 exceeded the number of children than were born out of
wedlock in FY1999.
To meet federal requirements, the paternity establishment percentage in a state
must exceed or equal 90% or, for states with lower percentages, must show specified
levels of improvement compared to the previous year –
^!for a state with a paternity establishment percentage of not less than
75% but less than 90% for such fiscal year, the paternity
establishment percentage of the state for the immediately preceding
fiscal year plus 2 percentage points;

^!for a state with a paternity establishment percentage of not less than
50% but less than 75% for such fiscal year, the paternity
establishment percentage of the state for the immediately preceding
fiscal year plus 3 percentage points;
^!for a state with a paternity establishment percentage of not less than
45% but less than 50% for such fiscal year, the paternity
establishment percentage of the state for the immediately preceding
fiscal year plus 4 percentage points;
^!for a state with a paternity establishment percentage of not less than
40% but less than 45% for such fiscal year, the paternity
establishment percentage of the state for the immediately preceding
fiscal year plus 5 percentage points;
^!for a state with a paternity establishment percentage of less than 40%
for such fiscal year, the paternity establishment percentage of the
state for the immediately preceding fiscal year plus 6 percentage
points.
In FY2000, the CSE paternity establishment percentage for the nation as a
whole was 64.7%. The range among the states went from a high of 100% in
Montana to a low of 31.7% in the District of Columbia (32.6% in New Mexico). In
FY2000, the statewide paternity establishment percentage for the nation as a whole
was 89.8%. The range among the states went from a high of 179.7% in California
to a low of 32.3% in Alabama. Data not available for 18 states. (See Table 2, p.

32–Percentage of Paternities Established Through the CSE Program and Statewide,

FY2000.)
Penalty for Noncompliance. Federal CSE law requires states to meet
federal standards for the establishment of paternity. If an audit finds that the state
CSE program has not substantially complied with those standards, the state is subject
to a penalty (not the so-called “nuclear” penalty described in footnote 25, but a
specified lesser penalty). In accordance with this penalty, the HHS Secretary must
reduce a state’s TANF block grant payment by not less than 1% nor more than 2%
for the first failure to comply; by not less than 2% nor more than 3% for the second
consecutive failure to comply; and by not less than 3% nor more than 5% for the third
or subsequent consecutive failure to comply.
Program Incentives for Paternity Establishment. The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, P.L. 104-193,
required the Secretary of HHS in consultation with the state CSE directors to develop
a revenue-neutral system of incentive payments to states that is based on
performance.²³ The incentive system is based on the state’s performance in five

²³ The total amount of the incentive payment depends on four factors: the total amount of
money available in a given fiscal year from which to make incentive payments, the state’s
success in making collections on behalf of its caseload, the state’s performance in five areas
(i.e., establishment of paternity and child support orders, collections of current and past-due
support payments, and cost-effectiveness), and the relative success or failure of other states
in making collections and meeting these performance criteria. Federal law (P.L. 105-200,
enacted July 16, 1998) stipulated that the incentive payment pool cannot exceed specified
(continued...)

major areas of child support enforcement: establishment of paternities, establishment
of child support orders, collections on current child support payments, collections
on past-due child support (i.e., arrearages), and cost-effectiveness. Each of the
measures is translated into a mathematical formula. The amount of incentive
payments for a particular measure is based on established standards of performance.
For each standard, there is an upper threshold. All states that achieve performance
levels at or above this upper threshold are entitled to a portion of a maximum
possible incentive for that performance measure. Simultaneously, there is a
minimum level of performance below which states are not paid an incentive, unless
the state has improved significantly over its previous year’s performance.
One of the main reasons for mandating a new incentive payment system was
that the old system was based almost entirely on child support collections. Congress
contended that an approach was needed to reward both collections and state
performance on the underlying factors on which collections were based. Thus, one
of the “performances” rewarded by the new incentive payment system is paternity
establishment. Under the new incentive system, if a state had a paternity
establishment percentage of 80% or higher, the state would be eligible for 100% of
the maximum value of the incentive. The maximum incentive would be based on a
percentage of the individual state’s collections. If a state had a paternity
establishment percentage of 49% or lower, the state would have to increase its
paternity establishment percentage by at least 10 percentage points over its prior
year’s performance in order to receive an incentive. If the state made such an
improvement it would be eligible for 50% of the state’s maximum incentive amount.
During the development of the new incentive system, concern was expressed
about the possibility that states would be financially penalized for noncompliance
with federal requirements at the same time they were eligible for CSE incentive
payments. Some analysts argued that the lack of an incentive payment would make
states subject to a double penalty if they did not improve performance. It was
decided that states should be eligible for incentives based on performance even if
they were subject to penalties because their performance had not improved to the
extent required to avoid the penalty. The following rationale was cited by a working
group that included HHS staff and CSE directors to help the HHS Secretary make
recommendations on a new CSE incentive payment system.
If a state is at an 85% performance level one year, and increases to 86% the
following year, it would be subject to a penalty for not achieving a 2% increase
in performance. The Incentive Funding Work Group felt that the state should be
rewarded for its high level of performance by receiving 100% of the possible
incentive to encourage sustained performance. The paternity incentive is an
integral part of the recognition and reward of state performance in the range of

²³ (...continued)
amounts, i.e., $422 million for FY2000, $429 million for FY2001; $450 million for FY2002;
$461 million for FY2003; $454 million for FY2004; $446 million for FY2005; $458 million
for FY2006; $471 million for FY2007; $483 million for FY2008. For years after FY2008,
the incentive pool is required to be increased to account for inflation.

required program results, and, as such, merits distinction regardless of the²⁴
potential for a penalty.
Paternity/Fatherhood Provisions
in the TANF Program
Federal law requires every state operating a TANF program to also operate a²⁵
CSE program. It also requires applicants for, and recipients of, TANF to assign
their rights to child support to the state in order to receive TANF benefits. In
addition, each applicant or recipient of TANF must cooperate with the state to
establish the paternity of a child born outside of marriage and to obtain child support
payments. Further, a 1999 HHS directive regarding the statutory goal of the TANF
program to promote the formation and maintenance of two-parent families,
interpreted two-parent families to mean not only married-couple families, but also
never-married, separated, and divorced parents, whether living together or not. Thus,
many states classify their fatherhood programs and programs that encourage
visitation by noncustodial parents under the rubric of fulfilling the purposes of the
TANF program.
Cooperation Requirements
Legally identifying the father is a prerequisite for obtaining a child support
order. Federal law requires TANF block grant (Title IV-A) applicants and recipients,
as a condition of receiving cash benefits, to cooperate in establishing paternity or
obtaining support payments. Moreover, it imposes a penalty for noncooperation; if
it is determined that an individual is not cooperating, and the individual does not
qualify for any good cause or other exception, then the state must reduce the family’s
TANF benefit by at least 25%, and may remove the family from the TANF program.
Pursuant to the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193), Section 454(29) of the
Social Security Act requires that parents must cooperate “in good faith” with the state
CSE agency in establishing paternity, or in establishing, modifying, or enforcing a
child support order. P.L. 104-193 required the custodial parent to (1) name the other
parent, subject to good cause and other exceptions, (2) supply additional necessary
information and appear at interviews, hearings, and legal proceedings, and (3) submit

²⁴ Incentive Funding Working Group. Report to the Secretary of Health and Human
Services. January 31, 1997. p. 9
²⁵ Under federal law, if a state fails to implement the CSE state plan requirements (Sections

454 and 466 of the Social Security Act), the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE)

cannot approve the state’s CSE program. Under the law, disapproval of a state’s CSE plan
requires suspension of all federal CSE payments, after an appeals process. Moreover, the
TANF title of P.L. 104-193 provides that the Governor of a state must certify that he or she
will operate an approved CSE program as a condition of eligibility for a TANF block grant.
Thus, if a state did not comply with the CSE procedures concerning paternity establishment
(Section 466(a)(5) of the Social Security Act), it could be in jeopardy of losing its federal
CSE funding. If a state has to update its TANF plan while the state’s CSE plan is in
disapproval status, that state’s TANF block grant funds also would be in jeopardy.

(together with the child) to genetic tests that are ordered by a judge or administrative
agency. Unlike prior AFDC law, the CSE agency, not the Title IV-A agency, is
responsible for making the cooperation determination. The CSE agency also is
required to promptly notify the individual and the TANF agency, the Foster Care
agency, the Medicaid agency, or the Food Stamp agency of a noncooperation
determination. Upon receiving such a notification, the appropriate agency must
sanction the family for noncooperation, unless the individual qualifies for a “good
cause” or other exemption. As noted above, in a TANF case, the state must reduce
the family’s TANF benefit by at least 25% and may remove the family from the
TANF program. If a state fails to promptly impose a sanction on the family, the state
would be subject to a reduction of from 1% to 5% of its TANF block grant funds.
Under federal law, the CSE agency has the authority to determine “good cause” and
other exceptions from the cooperation requirement. Federal law authorizes the states,
rather than the federal government, to develop “good cause” and other exceptions to
the cooperation requirement.
Fatherhood Initiatives
Many policymakers maintain that the children in single-parent families need
more than a working mother and sporadic child support.²⁶ They see the next step in
welfare reform as engaging fathers in the lives of the children. Federal, state, and
local governments along with public and private organizations are supporting
programs and activities that promote the financial and personal responsibility of
noncustodial fathers to their children and increase contact of fathers with their
children. These programs have come to be known as “fatherhood” programs or
initiatives. The following 14 states report that they have, or plan to have, fatherhood
initiatives: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota,
Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and
Wisconsin. An HHS-funded study on several fatherhood demonstration projects is
currently underway.
Most fatherhood programs include media campaigns that emphasize the
importance of emotional, physical, psychological, and financial connections of
fathers to their children. Most fatherhood programs include parenting education;
guidance in responsible decision-making; mediation services for both parents;
information about the purposes of the CSE program, and how it works; counseling
or classes related to conflict resolution, coping with stress, and problem-solving

²⁶ The 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193) supported the participation of fathers in the
lives of their children through an annual $10 million entitlement of CSE funds to states to
establish and operate access and visitation programs. In addition, the Welfare-to-Work grant
program was established in 1997 (P.L. 105-33) to help long-term welfare recipients obtain
work. P.L. 105-33 appropriated funding for FY1998 and FY1999 for the Welfare-to-Work
program and required the Department of Labor to administer the program. The Welfare-to-
Work grant program was modified in 1999 (P.L. 106-113) to specifically include
noncustodial parents who are unemployed, underemployed, or who are having difficulty
paying their child support obligations to eligible recipients. P.L. 106-554 gave grantees an
additional 2 years to expend funds, allowing Welfare-to-Work expenditures (which would
otherwise expire in FY2002) to continue through FY2004.

skills; peer support; and job training opportunities (skills development, interviewing
skills, job search, job retention skills, job advancement skills, etc.).
During the 106th Congress, legislation was twice passed by the House that
would have authorized funding for a national fatherhood competitive grant program.
Although a national responsible fatherhood program was not enacted, for FY2001
Congress appropriated $3.5 million for a national fatherhood organization named the
National Fatherhood Initiative and $500,000 for an organization called the Institute
for Responsible Fatherhood and Family Revitalization (P.L. 106-553 and P.L. 106-

554).

Although the federal government does not currently provide specifically for
fatherhood programs, many states and localities, private organizations and nonprofit
agencies operate fatherhood programs. Current programs that have somewhat broad
funding authority that enable them to include funding for fatherhood initiatives
include the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, TANF state
Maintenance-of-Effort (MOE) funding, welfare-to-work funds, Child Support
Enforcement (CSE) funds, and Social Services Block Grant (Title XX) funds. (For
information on responsible fatherhood legislation in the 107^th Congress, see
discussion below on Fatherhood Grant Programs.)
TANF Marriage and Two-Parent Family Goals
The TANF block grant program established statutory goals to promote the
formation and maintenance of two-parent families and to reduce welfare dependence
via job preparation, work, and marriage. States may spend TANF funds on a wide
range of activities (services) for cash welfare recipients and other families toward the
achievement of these goals. Beginning in FY2002, a portion of the TANF “high
performance bonus” ($10 million) will go to the 10 states with the greatest increase
in the percent of children living in married-couple families.²⁷
Years before the TANF program was enacted, some child support advocates
recommended that the primary focus for paternity actions be directed towards
maximizing the day-to-day involvement of the father in paternity cases. They argued
that federal assistance should be oriented toward helping recipients to become
self-sufficient and toward encouraging family formation. They recommended
decriminalizing and minimizing the adversarial nature of domestic relations and
paternity proceedings and the need to give priority to access/visitation, rather than
collection. They maintained that in the long run this would benefit parents, children,
and federal support obligations.²⁸

²⁷ The TANF program awards “high performance” bonuses to states that rank high on
outcome measures related to the program’s goals. A total of $1 billion was provided for 5
years (averaging $200 million per year) for this bonus.
²⁸ U.S. Commission on Interstate Child Support. Minority Report. Let the Fathers Return,
by Don Chavez, 1992. p. 24

Policy Options To Increase the Level of
Paternity Establishment
If examined in isolation, the CSE program has made great strides in establishing
paternity. Between FY1977 and FY2000 the number of children in the CSE program
whose paternity was established (or acknowledged) increased by 2,179%, from
68,263 in FY1977 to 1,555,581 in FY2000. However, if examined in the context of
all the children in the CSE caseload who need a paternity determination, the CSE
performance is less impressive. In FY2000, there were about 10.1 million children
in the CSE caseload who were born outside of marriage. Of these children, 6.5
million or 64.7% had paternity established or acknowledged (the comparable
percentage for FY1999 was 59.0%).²⁹
Even so, with more paternities being established than children being born
outside of marriage, progress is being made in reducing the number of children who
do not have legally established fathers. As noted above, paternity was established or
acknowledged for nearly 1.6 million children in the CSE caseload during FY2000,
whereas in FY2000 about 1.3 million babies were born outside of marriage. In some
states, establishing paternities for newborns is almost at 100%. However, as the data
indicate, establishing paternity for older children is still difficult.
Some proposals or programs that may increase the numbers of paternities
established include: more cooperation between parents and the CSE agencies,
continued outreach to fathers acknowledging their importance to their children,
voluntary acknowledgment of paternity especially via hospital-based programs, and
a renewed emphasis on finding the fathers of older children, perhaps through media
campaigns.
Cooperation Between Parents and CSE Agencies
Gaining cooperation from TANF families is important to facilitating child
support enforcement. Since the enactment of the CSE program, federal law has
stipulated that cash welfare recipients would be obligated to assist states in pursuing³⁰
support for their children. Generally, states ask for the putative father’s full name,
Social Security number, driver’s license number, date of birth, and current
employment data. States may also request the last-known address of the putative
father, make and model of putative father’s automobile, relatives’ addresses, and
previous employers. Nonetheless, some TANF mothers are unwilling or hesitant
about providing such information because they do not want the father in the child’s
life, they want to protect the father from child support collection, or they fear
domestic violence. The changes made to the cooperation requirement in the 1996
welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193) were in part an attempt to improve the cooperation

²⁹ Comparable data are not available for earlier years.
³⁰ With respect to non-welfare clients, it was assumed that they would automatically
cooperate with the CSE agency, otherwise they would not have applied for CSE services.

of custodial parents with the CSE agency (see earlier section on Cooperation
Requirements).³¹
Although the CSE program has historically been the policy answer to the
problem of father absence, because its focus until recently was exclusively on
financial support, it has had the practical effect of alienating many low-income
fathers who are unable to meet their child support obligations. Some policy analysts
maintain that fathers are in effect devalued when their role in their children’s lives
is based solely on their cash contributions. They argue that public policies are
needed to support the father’s role as nurturer, disciplinarian, mentor, and moral
instructor.³²
Some observers maintain that there are several ways to stimulate more
cooperation between parents and CSE agencies. First, fully inform parents about the
paternity establishment process and its ramifications. They say that states should
develop educational materials for parents and prospective parents that are sensitive
to the issues of race, gender, domestic violence, cultural and socio-economic
circumstances and that provide specific and honest information about the rights and
responsibilities that accompany paternity establishment. Some analysts argue that
child support caseworkers understand the paternity establishment process better than
TANF caseworkers and therefore should handle the initial intake interview in TANF
cases if paternity is an issue. Some observers contend that states should provide
parents who both want to establish paternity with access to a simple and accessible
voluntary paternity acknowledgment process, not limited to the hospital setting.
They say that staff who provide the information to parents should be properly trained
and very knowledgeable about paternity establishment. They state that paternity
establishment procedures should be fair in that both parents are afforded their due
process rights, and protections against domestic violence are taken into account.
Others recommend that Congress eliminate policies that rely on the state’s coercive
power to mandate paternity establishment against the wishes of both parents (mostly
mothers), such as the cooperation and assignment requirements imposed on TANF
families.³³
Some observers maintain that noncustodial parents and the CSE program have
irreconcilable differences and that the most that should be expected is (1) for the CSE
agency to provide both parents with professional and knowledgeable information and
service, and with multiple opportunities to furnish the appropriate information or
otherwise cooperate in establishing paternity or in establishing and collecting child
support; and (2) for noncustodial parents to clearly understand the purposes of the
CSE program, the requirements imposed on custodial parents and noncustodial

³¹ U.S,. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Inspector General. Client
Cooperation With Child Support Enforcement – Policies and Practices. March 2000, OEI-

06-98-00040. [http://www.dhhs.gov/progorg/oei]

³² Horn, Wade F., and Isabel V. Sawhill. Making Room For Daddy: Fathers, Marriage,
and Welfare Reform. Working Paper, The Brookings Institution. April 26, 2001. p. 4.
³³ National Women’s Law Center and the Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy.
Family Ties: Improving Paternity Establishment Practices and Procedures for Low-Income
Mothers, Fathers, and Children. November 2000. p. 24-28

parents, and that they as noncustodial parents have a moral and societal
responsibility to have (to build) a loving relationship with their children.³⁴ They
contend that if the CSE agencies provide honest information in a straightforward
manner, they may gain the cooperation of both parents, if not their trust.
Fatherhood Grant Programs
In hopes of improving the long-term outlook for children in single-parent
families, federal, state, and local governments along with public and private
organizations are supporting programs and activities that promote the financial and
personal responsibility of noncustodial fathers to their children and increase the
participation of fathers in the lives of their children. To help fathers and mothers
meet their parental responsibilities, many policy analysts and observers support
broad-based collaborative strategies that go beyond welfare and child support
agencies and include schools, work programs, prison systems, churches, community
organizations, and the health care system.
P.L. 107-116, the Labor, HHS, Education appropriation bill (H.R. 3061) for
FY2002 did not include the Administration’s FY2002 fatherhood proposal.³⁵
However, several pending bills (H.R. 1300/S. 653, H.R. 1471, S. 685, S. 940/H.R.
1990, H.R. 2893, H.R. 3625, H.R. 4090, and H.R. 4737³⁶) authorize funding for grant
programs for fatherhood initiatives. Moreover, President Bush’s FY2003 Budget
requests $20 million annually for FY2003-FY2007 for competitive grants to
community and faith-based organizations for programs that help noncustodial fathers
support their families to avoid or leave cash welfare, become more involved in their
children’s lives, promote successful parenting, and encourage and support healthy
marriages and married fatherhood.
In-Hospital Paternity Establishment
Experience of some states indicated that a father of a child born to an unmarried
mother is more likely to be present and to admit paternity during the time
surrounding birth than later on. Generally, early paternity establishment reduces

³⁴ University of Wisconsin – Madison. Institute for Research on Poverty. A Failed
Relationship? Low-income families and the Child Support enforcement system, by Maureen
Waller and Robert Plotnick. Focus, v. 21, no. 1, spring 2000. p. 12-17. (Hereafter cited as
University of Wisconsin-Madison, A Failed Relationship.)
³⁵ President Bush’s FY2002 Budget requested $64 million in FY2002 ($315 million over 5
years) for competitive grants to community and faith-based organizations for programs that
help unemployed and low-income fathers and their families avoid or leave cash welfare, and
programs that promote successful parenting and strengthen marriage, including $4 million
to support programs through grants, contracts or cooperative agreements that focus the
national attention (through public education and awareness, the use of mass media
campaigns, research, etc.) on the benefits of involving fathers in their children’s lives.
³⁶ H.R. 4737, the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2002, which
includes $20 million annually for FY2003-FY2007 for fatherhood programs, was passed by
the House on May 16, 2002.

location difficulties and administrative costs which can occur if paternity
establishment is delayed.
P.L.103-66, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, required states to
have in effect by October 1, 1993, a simple civil process for voluntarily
acknowledging paternity under which the state must explain the rights and
responsibilities of acknowledging paternity to both parents and afford due process
safeguards to both parents. The law stipulated that states had to include a
hospital-based program for the voluntary acknowledgment of paternity during the
period immediately preceding or following the birth of a child.³⁷ Congress asserted
that a nonadversarial approach at hospitals, prenatal clinics, and birthing centers
would probably increase the number of paternities established.
The Colorado Child Support Improvement Project which was implemented in
four hospitals in the Denver area during 1992-1994 simplified hospital-based
paternity establishment processes by eliminating associated fees and waiting periods
and replacing notarized signatures with witnessed ones. In addition, during the
demonstration period, birth registration clerks systematically approached all unwed
parents and explained the benefits of paternity, and assisted interested fathers in
completing paternity affidavits. An evaluation of the demonstration project revealed
that these changes nearly doubled voluntary paternity acknowledgment rates. Some
analysts note that although several demonstration projects showed a significant
increase in acknowledgments following implementation of simplified hospital-based
paternity acknowledgment procedures, 50% or more of the alleged fathers refused to
sign. Many of these men were involved with women who had more than two
children and/or were receiving some form of welfare assistance.³⁸
For the nation as a whole, during the 6-year period FY1994-FY2000, in-hospital
paternity acknowledgments increased 781%, from 78,129 in FY1994 (first year that
data reported to OCSE) to 688,510 in FY2000.
Some analysts attribute the dramatic increase in voluntary acknowledgments via
hospital-based programs to the rise in the number of cohabiting families. One study
indicates that fathers in cohabiting families generally do not have child support
orders and are not required to pay child support because (like married fathers) they
are presumed to be contributing financially to their child’s or children’s care. The
author contends that voluntary acknowledgment is less likely for children whose

³⁷ Federal law also required the state agency responsible for maintaining birth records to
offer voluntary paternity establishment services. Further, it stipulated that the HHS
Secretary must prescribe regulations specifying the types of other entities that may offer
voluntary paternity establishment services. In addition, the voluntary paternity
establishment services program must also be available at other entities designated by the
state. Such entities may include: public heath clinics (including Supplementary Feeding
Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and Maternal and Child Health (MCH)
clinics); CSE agencies, TANF agencies, Food Stamp agencies; Head Start and child care
agencies; Community Action agencies; secondary education schools, particularly those that
have parenthood education curricula; and legal aid agencies.
³⁸ Pearson, Jessica and Nancy Thoennes. The Child Support Improvement Project:
Paternity Establishment, Center for Policy Research. September 30, 1995.

parents are not cohabiting because in those cases once paternity is acknowledged, the
state can obligate the father to pay child support.³⁹
According to many CSE administrators, in-hospital paternity establishment
saves time and tax dollars by eliminating what could be a lengthy process of
administrative proceedings, court hearings, and DNA testing. On the other hand,
during a series of discussions among researchers, practitioners, and advocates it was
noted that the hospital setting has several disadvantages. It was pointed out that
current hospital maternity stays are very brief and the period surrounding childbirth
is often emotionally stressful. Some discussants thereby maintained that parents are
often not emotionally or mentally able to grasp the paternity acknowledgment
information presented to them.⁴⁰
Some suggestions for making in-hospital acknowledgment programs more
successful include mandating that the paternity acknowledgment procedures and
materials from the personnel in vital statistics and CSEs are consistent and
complementary; providing training on paternity acknowledgment and its implications
to birth registration personnel; generating timely, hospital-specific performance
information regarding voluntary paternity acknowledgment; and automating CSE
systems so that child support personnel can assess birth certificate information to
determine whether paternity needs to be established.⁴¹ Other suggestions include:
better training of hospital staff so that they can sufficiently answer parents’ questions
on the paternity establishment process, the development and distribution by hospitals
of culturally sensitive brochures that clearly explain the paternity establishment
process (available in different languages), and the inclusion on the voluntary
paternity establishment form of information about the effect of voluntary paternity
establishment on custody and visitation.⁴²
Identifying the Fathers of Older Children
Most researchers and observers agree that the best time to establish voluntary
paternity is at the time the child is born and that the probability of establishing
paternity declines as children age.
As noted earlier in the report, about 1.3 million babies were born to unmarried
parents in 2000. In FY2000, the CSE agencies reported nearly 700,000 cases in
which paternity was voluntarily acknowledged. Most of these cases involve
newborns. In addition, paternity was established for another 900,000 children.

³⁹ Turner, Mark. Child Support Enforcement and In-Hospital Paternity Establishment in
Seven Cities. Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. Working Paper #00-22-FF.
⁴⁰ National Women’s Law Center and the Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy.
Family Ties: Improving Paternity Establishment Practices and Procedures for Low-Income
Mothers, Fathers, and Children. November 2000. p. 17
⁴¹ Ibid., p. 17.
⁴² Ibid., p. 17

As the child of unmarried parents gets older, contact between his or her parents
generally diminishes. It is often the case that mothers lose track of the putative father
(e.g., telephone number is disconnected or has been changed and/or he has moved to
a new location). Policymakers expect the expanded location capabilities of the CSE
agencies, such as the State and National New Hires Directories and other automated
directories, to help locate putative fathers of older children much faster than under
the previous system.
One approach that many organizations and most states have used to focus
attention on fathers’ responsibility for older children is media campaigns. Outreach
campaigns are usually designed to educate parents and the general public about the
benefits of, and the process for, establishing paternity. They try to encourage both
mothers and fathers to seek and cooperate with paternity establishment efforts. Many
outreach campaigns air public service announcements on the radio and television,
display posters, billboards, brochures, pamphlets, and flyers throughout the
community or state, provide information booths at selected community events, and
give away promotional items such as pens, magnets, and book markers imprinted
with the CSE agency’s address and telephone number. In addition, the CSE agency
may provide special seminars on the benefits of paternity establishment to specified
groups. The shaded box below displays several of the slogans that have been used
by states and professional sporting organizations to promote the fatherhood message.
Fatherhood Media Campaign Messages
^!Fatherhood Can Be Child’s Play–Huddle Up. (NFL–Michigan)
^!Step Up to the Plate, Be a Responsible Father (Major League
Baseball–California)
^!First Things First–An Education, a Job, and Marriage Should
Precede Having Children (South Carolina)
^!They’re Your Kids, Be Their Dad (Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and
Maryland)
^!Fatherhood: No Penalty For Holding (NFL–New Jersey)
^!Fatherhood is One Responsibility Every Dad Needs to Tackle!
(NFL–Michiga n)
Even though it is common knowledge that a child does not necessarily look like
either of his or her biological parents, in the case of older children, paternity is more
likely to be established in an amicable manner if the child resembles the father or his
family. Although blood or genetic testing is the standard procedure in contested
paternity cases, many people view such tests as an affront to their integrity and an
indication of a lack of trust. This situation is exacerbated in the case of an older
child. According to some focus group discussants, for many couples, once one of the
partners or alleged partners indicates that a paternity test is needed, any future chance
for cooperative parenting is greatly diminished because of lingering animosity over

the father not stepping forward and meeting his financial responsibility or the mother
not being honest about her use of birth control.⁴³
Other Paternity Issues
Although many paternity concerns are intermingled with the effectiveness of the
CSE program, some are beyond the scope of the CSE program. This section of the
report highlights some of these issues. It examines how genetic testing developments
have added to the complexity of what is in the best interest of the child and have
sometimes disproved the presumption that a husband is the father of his wife’s child.
It also relays some of the concerns of mothers and alleged fathers with respect to
paternity establishment. In addition, it briefly summarizes some of the benefits of
paternity establishment for children. This section does not attempt to tackle any of
the legal issues concerning parentage that arise from the new reproductive
technologies. In other words, there is no discussion of the legal standing of sperm
donors, egg donors, or surrogate mothers.⁴⁴
Paternity of Marital Children
During the last several years, advances in genetic testing have resulted in more
instances of putative fathers substantiating their claim that they in fact are not the
biological father of the child in question. In divorce cases in which the mother
contends that her husband is not the father of her child and genetic tests verify her
claim, but the husband nevertheless wants to maintain a parent-child relationship and
continue the emotional and financial responsibilities of fatherhood, many courts
considering the best interests of the child and the public have ruled in the ex-
husband’s favor, arguing that there is more to fatherhood than biology. In divorce
cases in which the husband alleges that children of the marriage are not his and can
substantiate his allegation with genetic testing results, some courts have ruled on
behalf of the ex-husband, arguing that it is not fair to force a man to assume
responsibility for a child to whom he has no biological connection. Other courts have
not allowed husbands to raise the paternity issue at divorce, especially if the husband
suspected adultery and failed to act, contending that it would not be in the best
interest of the child or the public.⁴⁵ These examples indicate that in paternity cases
the “best interest of the child” doctrine is no longer as clear cut as it once seemed.

⁴³ Furstenberg, Frank F. Jr., Kay E. Sherwood, and Mercer L. Sullivan. Parents’ Fair Share
Demonstration. Caring and Paying: What Fathers and Mothers Say About Child Support
Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. July 1992. p. 47
⁴⁴ For information on these types of issues, see Biology and Beyond: The Case for Passage
of the New Uniform Parentage Act, by Paula Roberts with assistance from Nicole Williams.
Center on Law and Social Policy. October 2000.
⁴⁵ Ibid., p. 14-16.

Fathers’ Rights and Concerns
Some fatherhood advocates contend that the paternity establishment process is
beginning to focus more on efficiency, at the expense of the father’s right to due
process and his right to representation. They argue that in some instances alleged
fathers are not fully informed about the consequences of voluntarily acknowledging
paternity and do not fully understand the implication of their statements before they
are encouraged to legally acknowledge paternity.
“While fathers must fulfill their financialInformation obtainedfrom noncustodial fathers for
commitments, they must also fulfill their emotional
commitments. Dads play indispensable roles thatvarious surveys and studies
cannot be measured in dollars and cents: nurturer,consistently tells the same
mentor, disciplinarian, moral instructor, and skillsstory. Not surprisingly,
coach, among other roles.”noncustodial parents,
especially low-income fathers,
^Sou^r^ce^:^U^.^{S. Ex}^ecu^tiv^{e Of}^fⁱ^{ce of}^th^{e P}^r^es^iden^{t. A}prefer informal child support
^Bl^u^e^priⁿ^t^f^o^{r N}^e^w^Begⁱⁿⁿⁱⁿ^g^s^–A^R^e^s^pon^sⁱ^bl^e^Bu^dg^et^f^o^ragreements between
^A^m^erica’^s^P^r^iorities^.^C^h^{apter 12. Febru}^a^ry^{2001. p. 75.}themselves and the child’s
mother wherein they
contribute cash support when they can and provide noncash aid such as taking care
of the children from time to time and buying food, clothing, presents, etc. as often as
they can. This perspective is not new. For years low-income fathers have expressed
frustration over not having enough money to sufficiently provide for their children.
Further, many noncustodial fathers maintain that the CSE system is dismissive of
their financial condition and continues to pursue child support payments (current as
well as arrearages) even when it knows that many of them can barely support
themselves. They contend that the CSE program causes conflicts between them and
their child’s mother because the women often use it as leverage by threatening to
report them to CSE authorities, take them back to court, have more of their wages
garnished, or have them arrested.⁴⁶ One report noted: “Often fathers cannot pay their
support, cannot afford activities with their children... If the divorced father...is
ordered to pay an amount of support that makes it impossible to meet his own living
expenses and pay for visitation activities–he probably will not see much of his
ch ildren.”⁴⁷
Default Judgments. Federal law requires states to have procedures requiring
a default order to be entered in a paternity case upon a showing of “service of
process” on the defendant and any additional showing required by state law. In
general, once the mother has identified a putative father, and the CSE agency is
reasonably sure they have located his home or work address, the man must be
notified that he has been named in a paternity case. This notification is typically a

⁴⁶ University of Wisconsin – Madison, A Failed Relationship?, p. 12-17. See also: Family
Ties: Improving Paternity Establishment Practices and Procedures for Low-Income
Mothers, Fathers and Children. National Women’s Law Center and Center on Fathers,
Families, and Public Policy. p. 9-11.
⁴⁷ Anderson-Khleif, Susan. Divorced But Not Disastrous: How to Improve the Ties
Between Single Parent Mothers, Divorced Fathers, and the Children. 1982. p.148-150.

letter alleging his paternity and requesting his appearance at an appointment with the
CSE agency or a court hearing, or submission to genetic testing. The putative
father’s receipt of this letter is called “service of process.”⁴⁸
Many observers have concerns about this provision of law because states and
jurisdictions have broad discretion in determining what constitutes notice (i.e,.
service of process). Some jurisdictions consider publication notice, where a notice
of the proceeding is put into the newspaper, as sufficient. Thus, even in situations
in which some level of notice is required, federal law allows the mother, or the state
in a welfare case, to obtain a determination of paternity when the man named as the
father is not present for the initial hearing or for subsequent paternity proceedings.
Some observers argue that the practice of using default judgments (i.e.,
judgments made in the absence of the alleged father) has adversely affected many
putative fathers who claim they are not the father of the child in question but, for
whatever reason, did not show up in court to deny the allegations.
Many observers maintain that the standards governing default judgments should
balance the rights of the putative father to proper notice and the opportunity to be
heard before paternity is established and a child support order set against the right of
the child to obtain a determination of paternity and support (on a timely basis) from
a father who knowingly fails to appear in court.⁴⁹
When 95% Equals 100%. Federal law requires states to have procedures
which create a rebuttable or, at the option of the state, conclusive presumption of
paternity upon genetic testing results indicating a threshold probability that the
alleged father is the actual father of the child. Most states have a rebuttable
presumption paternity threshold that ranges from 95%-99.9%.
In some states, blood test results that indicate a 98% or greater probability of
paternity are not rebuttable, which raises the possibility that 2% of the putative
fathers tested may be wrongly assigned paternity, and thereby wrongly saddled with⁵⁰
an 18-year financial responsibility.
Where Is the Money Going? Some noncustodial fathers argue that they
were hoodwinked into believing that if they voluntarily acknowledged paternity, any
child support they paid would be helping their child. They contend that this is not so
if the child’s mother is receiving TANF benefits because instead of directly
benefitting their children, their child support payments are used to pay the state back
for welfare payments that the family is receiving.

⁴⁸ U.S,. Department of Health and Human Services. Office of the Inspector General.
Paternity Establishment – Administrative and Judicial Methods. April 2000, OEI-06-98-

00050. p. 5 [http://www.dhhs.gov/progorg/oei]

⁴⁹ National Women’s Law Center and the Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy.
Family Ties: Improving Paternity Establishment Practices and Procedures for Low-Income
Mothers, Fathers, and Children. November 2000. p. 21
⁵⁰ University of Wisconsin – Madison. Institute for Research on Poverty. Paternity and
Public Policy by Daniel R. Meyer. Focus, v. 14, no. 2, summer 1992.

The 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193) eliminated the mandatory $50 child
support pass-through and disregard for TANF families; states are now allowed to set
their own policies. As of February 2002, 26 states had chosen to eliminate the child
support pass-through and disregard. In those states, none of the money paid by
noncustodial parents on behalf of their children who are receiving TANF benefits
goes to their children. All of it goes to the state and federal governments to
reimburse welfare costs. This change in policy, together with the dramatic decrease
in the TANF caseload, has significantly reduced the amount of child support that
goes to children who receive cash welfare assistance. In FY1996, under the former
AFDC program about $337 million in child support payments was passed through
to AFDC families and disregarded in calculating the family’s AFDC benefit. In
FY2000, $165 million in child support payments was received by TANF families.
Once families leave the TANF rolls, they are entitled to receive all current
support paid on their behalf. This was true under the former AFDC program as well.
However, current law (as compared to former, pre-1996, law) allows former cash
welfare families to receive a greater share of the child support arrearages collected
on their behalf, by giving priority to their claims over the state’s claim to arrearages
assigned to it (in certain circumstances).⁵¹
Custodial parents also are dissatisfied with the current child support distribution
system. Custodial parents are frustrated because they view child support arrearages
as belonging to them. They argue that they had to rely on family and friends for
financial assistance during periods when the noncustodial parent failed to pay child
support that occurred before they went on welfare. They contend that they (and not
the state) are entitled to any pre-welfare arrearage payments that are collected on their
behalf. Advocates point out that while promising families priority in collecting
arrearages owed to them as an inducement to encourage them to move off welfare as
soon as possible, the states and the federal government keep for themselves
collections made via the federal income tax refund offset program – the most
lucrative form of arrearage collection. (In tax year 2000, $1.4 billion in overdue
support was collected via U.S.
Absent the restoration of the fundamentalclaims on federal income taxrefunds.)
importance of both parents and sensitivity to
preserving the child’s emotional bonds and healthy
contact with both parents, the future of children inPutative Father
our society will continue to portend disfunctionRegistries. At the other end
and despair. Hope for substantial and beneficialof the paternity establishment
improvement in the quality of life for our progenyspectrum is the case of
lies in the changing of the American credo frombiological fathers who do not
“the flag, motherhood, and apple pie” to “the flag,have the opportunity to assert
motherhood, and fatherhood.” their paternal rights. This can
happen if the father is unaware
^So^urce^:^U^.^S^.^C^o^m^mⁱ^s^sⁱ^on^on^In^t^e^rs^t^a^t^e^C^hⁱ^l^d^S^u^pport^.of the pregnancy or loses
^Min^o^r^ity^Rep^o^r^t.^{Let th}^{e Fa}^th^{ers Retu}^rn^{, by}^Doncontact with the mother. To

^C^h^av^{ez. Ju}ⁿ^e^{10, 1992. p.31}
⁵¹ The exception occurs if the child support arrearages were collected by the state through
the federal income tax offset program. In those cases, the state has priority over the former
TANF family.

protect the rights of biological fathers who want to assume parental rights and
responsibilities, about half of the states have established paternity registries. Thus,
in the event that the mother places the child up for adoption, the biological father will
be notified of any proceedings to terminate his parental rights if he registers his claim
to paternity. These paternity registries are viewed as a vehicle to limit the potential
disruption to children and adoptive parents while protecting the rights of biological
fathers.⁵²
Mothers’ Rights and Concerns
Historically one of the main reasons custodial mothers have cited for not having
a child support award is that they did not pursue obtaining one. It is not known
whether this is because they did not want any further contact with the child’s father
because of a belief that the child was better off without paternal contact, fear of
domestic and/or sexual violence, an attitude that assumed that the man could not pay
child support so why bother, or wanting to move on to another relationship without
the complexity of the child’s father always being in the picture.
Women who are victims of domestic violence often face the conflict between
the need for financial support from child support payments and the need for safety
from abuse. Unless they choose to forego the child support payment because the risk
of abuse is too great to warrant its pursuit, women who are victims of domestic
violence must comply with the requirements for cooperation with the child support
enforcement process. These requirements, however, can increase the risk of harm for
the victim of domestic violence by bringing the victim and abuser into near proximity
during courtroom proceedings; and/or angering an abuser by automatic procedures
such as wage withholding or a driver’s license suspension. However, if women who
fear their abusers choose not to pursue child support, they impair their ability to
become self-sufficient by relinquishing the child support resource for themselves and
their children. Most victims of domestic violence do not want to forego these
resources, and yet want to ensure their own safety and that of their children.⁵³ For the
most part, women in these situations have to opt out of the CSE system through good
cause exemptions or the 1996 welfare reform family violence option⁵⁴ and forego

⁵² Center for Law and Social Policy. Biology and Beyond: The Case for Passage of the New
Uniform Parentage Act, by Paula Roberts with assistance from Nicole Williams. October

2000. p. 30.

⁵³ Mathematica Policy Research Inc. Making Child Support Safe: Coordinating Child
Support and Public Assistance Agencies in Their Response to Domestic Violence, by Ali
Stieglitz and Amy Johnson. May 2001.
⁵⁴ The Family Violence Option (FVO) of the 1996 welfare law (P.L. 104-193) permits state
TANF programs to waive federal rules regarding required work, time limited benefits, and
child support cooperation for victims of domestic violence. The purpose of the FVO is to
enable states to help victims of domestic violence without subjecting them to TANF rules
that might “unfairly penalize” them or put them at further risk of abuse. Specifically, the
FVO requires states that adopt it to: screen for and identify victims of domestic violence;
refer victims of domestic violence to appropriate services; and grant “good cause” waivers
to domestic violence victims when TANF requirements are harmful or unsafe. As of
(continued...)

CSE services. Only a few states offer alternative case process services that help a
custodial parent work out a safe plan for obtaining child support payments.⁵⁵
Best Interests of the Child
Many observers maintain that the social, psychological, emotional, and financial
benefits of having one’s father legally identified are irrefutable. They suggest that
paternity should be established, regardless of the ability of the father to pay child
support. They argue that the role of both parents is critical in building the self-
esteem of their children and helping the children become self-sufficient members of
the community.
Once paternity is established legally, a child gains legal rights and privileges.
Among these may be rights to inheritance, rights to the father’s medical and life
insurance benefits, and to social security and possibly veterans’ benefits. The child
also has a chance to develop a relationship with the father, and to develop a sense of
identity and connection to the “other half” of his or her family. It also may be
important for the health of the child for doctors to have knowledge of the father’s
medical history.
It is often noted that legally establishing paternity is not the end of the story and
that legally conferring fatherhood status on a man does not guarantee that the man
will be a caring and responsible father. Some observers contend that a good
relationship can exist without the formal establishment of legal paternity and a bad
relationship cannot be fixed nor a previously nonexistent feeling created simply by
establishing legal paternity. For some parents whose relationships are good,
voluntarily establishing paternity can be an affirmation of their feelings for each other
and the child. While for others parents with good relationships, who may be
considering marriage to each other, paternity establishment may be viewed as a sign
of distrust, and thereby inconsistent with eventual marriage. For some parents and
communities, the father’s informal acknowledgment – identifying the child as his to
his family and friends and providing some financial support and help – may be more
meaningful than a legal establishment of paternity. However, others note that if the
relationship between the parents changes (e.g., becomes more adversarial), an
informal acknowledgment may not provide as reliable a foundation for continuing
support as a formal acknowledgment that legally establishes paternity.⁵⁶
Moreover, some analysts argue that the child’s perspective and concept of
family and connectedness with both parents must be acknowledged and encouraged,
regardless of whether his or her parents have separated, divorced, or never married.

⁵⁴ (...continued)
FY2000, 44 out of 54 jurisdictions with TANF programs had adopted the FVO.
⁵⁵ Center for Law and Social Policy. Models for Safe Child Support Enforcement, by Vicki
Turetsky and Susan Notar. October 1999. p. 20
⁵⁶ National Women’s Law Center and the Center on Fathers, Families, and Public Policy.
Family Ties: Improving Paternity Establishment Practices and Procedures for Low-Income
Mothers, Fathers, and Children. November 2000. p. 12

The strength of the emotional bonds within a family often greatly affect whether or
not the child will become a good citizen and a responsible parent.
Concluding Remarks
Critics of the CSE program contend that even with an unprecedented array of
“big brother” enforcement tools such as license (professional, driver’s, recreational)
and passport revocation; seizure of banking accounts, retirement funds, and lottery
winnings; and automatic income withholding from pay checks, the program still
collects only 17% of child support obligations for which it has responsibility and
collects payments for only 42% of its caseload. Two reasons for the low rate of child
support collections are (1) the low rate of paternity establishment; in FY2000
paternity was established for only 65% of the 10.1 million children in the CSE
caseload who were born outside of marriage; and (2) many fathers cannot afford to
pay; a study based on 1997 data indicated that 21% of noncustodial fathers were poor
and thus had a limited ability to provide child support to their children.⁵⁷ A study
based on 1999 data indicated that 30% of poor fathers and 72% of nonpoor fathers
paid child support.⁵⁸
In addition to increasing fathers’ financial contributions, CSE policy may affect
family formation behavior and how fathers relate to their children.⁵⁹ According to
economic theory, stronger child support enforcement may increase the cost of
children for men and should make men more reluctant to have children outside of
marriage. In other words, by raising the cost of fatherhood to unmarried men,
effective paternity establishment and child support enforcement deter non-marital
births.⁶⁰ In contrast, stronger child support enforcement may reduce the cost of
children for women (making them more willing to have children outside of
marriage).⁶¹ However, according to recent evidence, once a woman becomes a single
mother, her chances of marrying anyone other than the father of her child are greatly
reduced.⁶²

⁵⁷ The Urban Institute. Assessing the New Federalism, Discussion Papers. A Look at Poor
Dads Who Don’t Pay Child Support, by Elaine Sorensen and Chava Zibman. September

2000.

⁵⁸ The Urban Institute. Policy Reforms are Needed to Increase Child Support from Poor
Fathers, by Elaine Sorensen and Helen Oliver. April 2002. p. 4.
⁵⁹ Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. Working Paper #01-13-FF. Welfare Reform,
Fertility and Father Involvement, by Sara S. McLanahan and Marcia J. Carlson. January

8, 2002. p. 22.

⁶⁰ Center for Law and Social Policy. The Importance of Child Support Enforcement: What
Recent Social Science Research Tell Us, by Paula Roberts. Spring 2002. p. 5.
⁶¹ Joint Center for Policy Research. The Impact of Child Support Enforcement on
Nonmarital and Marital Births: Does It Differ by Racial and Age Groups?, by Chien-Chung
Huang. November 20, 2001. p. 5-6.
⁶² Progressive Policy Institute. Marriage as Public Policy, by Daniel T. Lichter. Policy
Report, September 2001.

It is also important to note that for children whose mothers and fathers both are
poor, particularly children who receive TANF benefits, paternity establishment may
not necessarily be economically beneficial. Because of child support distribution
rules, child support paid on behalf of TANF families is retained by the state and the
federal governments to reimburse them for cash welfare paid to the family.
Nevertheless, this must be balanced by the tenet that in our society, parents are
responsible for the financial well-being of their children and regardless of where their
money actually goes, it is the duty of noncustodial parent to make child support
payments.
Although the CSE program has historically been the policy answer to the
problem of father absence, because its focus until recently was exclusively on
financial support, it has had the practical effect of alienating many low-income
fathers who are unable to meet their child support obligations. Many observers allege
that the CSE program’s focus on cost-recovery resulted in a CSE culture wherein
noncustodial parents generally were viewed negatively, nonpaying noncustodial
parents were viewed as lawbreakers, and putative fathers were seen as riffraff. It is
generally agreed that the current policies and procedures pertaining to paternity
establishment have made the process more efficient and non-combative, and that the
technology exists to make the finding of paternity almost infallible. Some contend
that the CSE program needs to change its perspective regarding putative fathers and
send out a new message that highlights its service delivery mission, so that negative
perceptions about the agency will not cause noncustodial parents and putative fathers
to make inappropriate decisions.

Table 1. CSE Children Born Outside of Marriage, FY2000
Number of childrenTotal number ofPercentage of CSE
in CSE caseloadchildren in CSEchildren born
Stateborn out of wedlockcaseloadout of wedlock
Alabama 185,983 302,382 61.5
Alaska 8,990 52,166 17.2
Arizona 185,020 283,842 65.2
Arka nsas 87,486 174,797 50.1
California 1,527,959 2,388,343 64.0
Colorado 77,258 158,152 48.9
Connecticut 127,638 193,264 66.0
Delaware 49,235 61,734 79.8
District of Columbia77,498115,08767.3
Florida 425,642 932,052 45.7
Georgi a 380,637 581,501 65.5
Guam 2,103 19,102 11.0
Hawaii 26,183 92,911 28.2
Idaho 27,635 79,766 34.6
Illinois 840,796 1,148,908 73.2
Indiana 187,704 459,952 40.8
Io wa 106,347 230,803 46.1
K a nsas 12,003 154,516 7.8
K e ntucky 169,657 395,772 42.9
Louisiana 198,349 350,499 56.6
Maine 38,169 86,601 44.1
Maryland 245,714 339,099 72.5
Massachusetts 114,294 257,708 44.4
Michigan 409,405 1,007,452 40.6
Minnesota 142,682 269,697 52.9
Mississippi 204,393 326,036 62.7
Missouri 219,569 524,520 41.9
Montana 17,621 40,998 43.0
Nebraska 42,029 108,831 38.6
Neva da 45,130 143,422 31.5
New Hampshire14,93749,01930.5
New Jersey186,322480,52938.8
New Mexico13,435150,8458.9
New York629,7261,163,27854.1
North Carolina360,806532,35267.8
North Dakota13,92732,85842.4
Ohio 431,352 863,657 49.9
Oklahoma 119,141 176,205 67.6
Oregon 83,623 275,093 30.4
Pennsyl va nia 240,200 721,913 33.3
Puerto Rico10,722267,6884.0

Number of childrenTotal number ofPercentage of CSE
in CSE caseloadchildren in CSEchildren born
Stateborn out of wedlockcaseloadout of wedlock
Rhode Island45,81266,62368.8
South Carolina171,195251,51668.1
South Dakota11,64523,63249.3
T e nnessee 175,938 414,517 42.4
T e xas 660,604 1,298,459 50.9
Utah 31,453 98,901 31.8
V e rmont 11,280 28,386 39.7
Virgin IslandsNANANA
V i rginia 270,038 400,061 67.5
Washington 153,061 365,694 41.9
West Virginia70,621138,98350.8
Wisconsin 194,411 333,762 58.2
Wyoming 14,986 35,530 42.2
Total 10,098,364 19,449,414 51.9
^So^urce^{: T}^a^{ble prepared by}^th^e^C^oⁿ^g^r^es^sⁱ^on^al^R^e^s^earch^Serv^ice^(C^R^S^{), bas}^e^{d on}^{data f}^r^om^th^{e Of}^fⁱ^ce
^of^C^hⁱ^l^d^S^u^pport^En^f^o^rcem^en^t^(O^C^S^{E) of}^t^h^{e D}^e^part^m^eⁿ^t^of^H^eal^t^h^an^{d H}^u^m^aⁿ^S^e^rvⁱ^ces^(H^H^S^).

Table 2. Paternities Established Through the CSE Program and
Statewide, FY2000
^CSE^CSE
^pa^t^ernit^ies^ou^t-of-^St^a^t^ew^ide
^est^a^{blished o}^r^we^d^l^o^c^k^pa^t^ernit^ies^St^a^t^ew^ide
^ackⁿ^ow^l^e^d^g^ed^birt^hs^Percentage^est^a^blished^ou^t-of-^{Percent of}
^(regard^l^es^s^of^(regardles^s^{of C}^S^E^or^we^d^l^o^c^k^st^a^t^e^w^ide
^year^{of year of}^pa^t^ernit^ies^ackⁿ^ow^l^e^d^g^ed^birt^{hs (}ⁱⁿ^pa^t^ernit^ies
^St^a^t^e^est^a^blished)^birt^h)^est^a^blished⁽ⁱⁿ^FY²⁰⁰⁰⁾^FY¹⁹⁹⁹⁾^est^a^blished
^A^l^abam^a^110,940^185,983^59.7⁶^,689^20,693^32.3
^A^l^as^k^a^6,758^8,990^75.2²^,987^3,239^92.2
^A^rⁱ^z^on^a^141,108^185,020^76.3^N^A^31,264^N^A
^A^r^k^aⁿ^s^as^56,634^87,486^64.7^N^A⁴^,535^N^A
^C^a^lⁱ^f^ornⁱ^a^987,267^1,527,959^64.6^306,508^170,607^179.7
^C^o^l^o^rado^66,895^77,258^86.6^14,635^16,048^91.2
^C^oⁿⁿ^ectⁱ^c^u^t^91,724^127,638^71.9^13,287^12,459^106.6
^D^e^l^a^w^a^re^33,359^49,235^67.8^N^A⁴^,111^N^A
^{District o}^f^24,551^77,498^31.7⁴^,343^6,517^66.6
^Co^lu^m^b^ia
^F^l^ori^d^a^366,915^425,642^86.2^60,531^77,069^78.5
^G^e^orgⁱ^a^185,765^380,637^48.8^N^A^N^A^N^A
^G^u^am⁶⁸⁹^2,103^32.8¹^,885^2,010^93.8
^H^a^w^aⁱⁱ^22,476^26,183^85.8^N^A^11,585^N^A
^Idah^o^23,080^27,635^83.5²^,660^4,284^62.1
^Illin^ois^319,727^840,796^38.0^52,894^57,079^92.7
^In^di^an^a^70,492^187,704^37.6^N^A^N^A^N^A
^Iow^a^85,874^106,347^80.7⁹^,522^9,853^96.6
^K^aⁿ^s^as^7,002^12,003^58.3⁸^,571^10,986^78.0
^K^eⁿ^t^u^c^k^y^114,327^169,657^67.4⁷^,993^7,810^102.3
^L^o^uⁱ^sⁱ^an^a^118,916^198,349^60.0^14,286^N^A^N^A
^Maiⁿ^e^33,750^38,169^88.4²^,905^3,815^76.1
^Mary^l^aⁿ^d^177,209^245,714^72.1^33,182^231,138^14.4
^Mas^s^ach^u^s^et^t^s^89,154^114,²⁹⁴^78.0^22,084^21,202^104.2
^Mi^chⁱ^g^an^311,239^409,405^76.0^41,372^41,317^100.1
^Miⁿⁿ^e^s^o^t^a^103,764^142,682^72.7^14,562^16,873^86.3
^Mi^s^sⁱ^s^sⁱ^ppi^131,315^204,393^64.2^N^A^N^A^N^A
^Mi^s^s^o^u^rⁱ^166,199^219,569^75.7^22,242^26,390^84.3
^Mon^t^an^a^17,631^17,621^100.1^N^A²^,983^N^A
^N^e^bras^k^a^31,696^42,029^75.4⁵^,451^6,326^86.2
^N^e^v^a^da^33,674^45,130^74.6^N^A^N^A^N^A
^New^13,269^14,937^88.8³^,248^3,477^93.4
^Ham^p^sh^ire
^N^e^w^Jers^ey^136,717^186,322^73.4^34,781^31,214^111.4
^N^e^w^Mexⁱ^co^4,376^13,435^32.6^11,996^11,525^104.1
^N^e^w^Y^o^rk^393,432^629,726^62.5^97,874^94,687^103.4
^N^o^rt^h^C^a^rolⁱⁿ^a^196,027^360,806^54.3^N^A^N^A^N^A
^N^o^rt^h^D^a^k^o^t^a^10,973^13,927^78.8^N^A²^,425^N^A
^O^hⁱ^o^322,104^431,352^74.7^56,684^51,910^109.2
^O^k^l^a^h^o^m^a^43,049^119,141^36.1^13,344^16,092^82.9
^O^r^eg^on^55,750^83,623^66.7^12,246^14,315^85.5
^Penⁿ^s^y^l^v^aⁿⁱ^a^182,714^240,200^76.1^56,588^47,585^118.9
^Pu^ert^o^Rⁱ^co^9,002^10,722^84.0^27,387^29,591^92.6
^R^h^{ode Is}^l^aⁿ^d^27,410^45,812^59.8^N^A^N^A^N^A
^S^o^u^t^h^C^a^rolⁱⁿ^a^124,014^171,195^72.4^11,687^20,271^57.7
^S^o^u^t^h^D^a^k^o^t^a^10,663^11,645^91.6^N^A³^,324^N^A

^CSE^CSE
^pa^t^ernit^ies^ou^t-of-^St^a^t^ew^ide
^est^a^{blished o}^r^we^d^l^o^c^k^pa^t^ernit^ies^St^a^t^ew^ide
^ackⁿ^ow^l^e^d^g^ed^birt^hs^Percentage^est^a^blished^ou^t-of-^{Percent of}
^(regard^l^es^s^of^(regardles^s^{of C}^S^E^or^we^d^l^o^c^k^st^a^t^e^w^ide
^year^{of year of}^pa^t^ernit^ies^ackⁿ^ow^l^e^d^g^ed^birt^{hs (}ⁱⁿ^pa^t^ernit^ies
^St^a^t^e^est^a^blished)^birt^h)^est^a^blished⁽ⁱⁿ^FY²⁰⁰⁰⁾^FY¹⁹⁹⁹⁾^est^a^blished
^T^eⁿⁿ^e^s^s^e^e^111,133^175,938^63.2^19,150^28,111^68.1
^T^e^x^a^s^342,082^660,604^51.8^115,642^101,479^114.0
^U^t^ah^30,024^31,453^95.5⁷^,213^8,024^89.9
^V^e^rm^on^t^10,035^11,280^89.0^N^A^N^A^N^A
^Virgⁱⁿ^Islan^d^s^N^A^N^A^N^A¹^,1⁴⁸^NA^NA
^Vⁱ^rgⁱⁿⁱ^a^221,951^270,038^82.2^23,449^27,985^83.8
^Was^hⁱⁿ^g^t^on^144,898^153,061^94.7^N^A^21,978^N^A
^Wes^t^Vⁱ^rgⁱⁿⁱ^a^52,531^70,621^74.4⁶^,210^6,673^93.1
^Wi^s^c^on^sⁱⁿ^153,808^194,411^79.1^N^A^N^A^N^A
^Wy^omⁱⁿ^g⁸^,996^14,986^60.0¹^,805^1,773^101.8
^T^o^tal⁶^,535,088^10,098,364^64.⁷¹^,149,041^1,279,922^89.8
^So^urce^{: T}^a^{ble prepared}^by^th^e^C^oⁿ^g^r^es^sⁱ^on^al^R^e^s^earch^Serv^{ice (C}^R^S^{), bas}^e^{d on}^{data f}^r^om^th^{e Of}^fⁱ^ce
^of^C^hⁱ^l^d^S^u^pport^En^f^o^rcem^en^t^(O^C^S^{E) of}^t^h^{e D}^e^part^m^eⁿ^t^of^H^eal^t^h^an^{d H}^u^m^aⁿ^S^e^rvⁱ^ces^(H^H^S^).
^No^te^:^St^a^t^e^p^a^t^e^rⁿⁱ^t^y^a^c^kno^w^l^e^d^gm^eⁿ^t^sⁱⁿ^c^l^ud^e^aⁿ^unkno^wⁿ^num^b^e^r^o^f^a^c^kno^w^l^e^d^gm^eⁿ^t^s^fo^r^c^hⁱ^l^d^r^eⁿ
ⁱⁿ^th^{e C}^S^{E cas}^eload.

Appendix A
Legislative History of Paternity Establishment
Provisions
P.L. 90-248, the Social Security Amendments of 1967
This law required each state to establish a single organizational unit to establish
paternity of children who were born out of wedlock and who were receiving AFDC.
P.L. 93-647, the Social Security Amendments of 1974
This law greatly increased federal intervention in state child support
enforcement activities and created part D of Title IV of the Social Security Act. This
new part, entitled “Child Support and Establishment of Paternity,” required states,
in order to receive AFDC funds, to operate a CSE program with specified
components. Most of these had already been used in states that had been the most
successful in implementing effective child support programs. Although the law left
the basic responsibility for child support and establishment of paternity to the state,
a far more active role was established for the federal government. P.L. 93-647
mandated more aggressive administration at both the federal and state levels,
combined with financial incentives and penalties to encourage state compliance.
The primary responsibility for operating the CSE program was placed on the
states pursuant to the state plan. A couple of the major requirements of a state plan
were that: the state designate a single and separate organizational unit to administer
the program and the state undertake to establish paternity and secure support for
individuals receiving AFDC and others (i.e., non-AFDC families) who apply directly
for CSE services. New eligibility requirements were added to the AFDC program
requiring applicants for, or recipients of, AFDC to make an assignment of their child
support rights to the state, to cooperate with the state in establishing paternity and
securing support, and to furnish their Social Security number to the state.
P.L. 94-88, Tariff Amendments, Amendments to Social
Security Act – 1975
This law eased the requirement for AFDC recipients to cooperate with state CSE
agencies when such cooperation would not be in the best interests of the child.
(Good cause standards for refusing to cooperate in establishing paternity generally
included situations that could result in physical or emotional harm to the child or
caretaker relative, where legal procedures for adoption were underway, or where the
child was conceived as a result of incest or rape.)
P.L. 98-378, the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of
1984
This law placed emphasis on improving both the child support enforcement and
paternity establishment components of the program. It offered states incentives to

make services available to both AFDC and non-AFDC families. It also required
states to establish procedures that permitted the establishment of paternity any time
prior to a child’s 18th birthday.
In addition, the law permitted states to operate an approved child support
research and demonstration project waiver under Section 1115 of the Social Security
Act, provided certain conditions were met.
P.L. 100-485, the Family Support Act of 1988
This law required states to initiate the establishment of paternity for all children
under the age of 18, including those for whom an action to establish paternity was
previously dismissed because of the existence of a statute of limitations of less than
18 years. It encouraged states to create simple civil processes for voluntarily
acknowledging paternity and civil procedures for establishing paternity in contested
cases, and required states to have all parties in a contested paternity case take a
genetic test upon the request of any party. It required the federal government to pay
90% of the laboratory costs of these tests, and permitted states to charge non-AFDC
families for the cost of establishing paternity. It also set paternity establishment
standards for the states. In addition, it required that each state, in administering any
law involving the issuance of birth certificates, require both parents to furnish their
Social Security Number (SSN), unless the state finds good cause for not doing so.
As noted above, states are required to meet federal standards for the
establishment of paternity. The primary standard relates to the percentage obtained
by dividing the number of children in the state who are born out of wedlock, are
receiving cash benefits or CSE services, and for whom paternity has been established
by the number of children who are born out of wedlock and are receiving cash
benefits or CSE services. To meet federal requirements, this percentage in a state
must: (1) be at least 50%; (2) be at least equal to the average for all states; or (3)
have increased by 3 percentage points from fiscal years 1988 to 1991 and by 3
percentage points each year thereafter.
The 1988 law requires each state, in the administration of any law involving the
issuance of a birth certificate, to require each parent to furnish his or her SSN, unless
the state finds good cause for not requiring the parent to furnish it. The SSN must
appear in the birth record but not on the birth certificate, and the use of the SSN
obtained through the birth record is restricted to CSE purposes, except under certain
circumstances. In addition, the law requires the HHS Secretary to maintain data, for
both AFDC and non-AFDC families, on the number of cases needing and/or
receiving CSE services, including paternity determination.
P.L. 103-66, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993
The 1993 reforms revised and added to the mandatory paternity establishment
requirements imposed on states by the Family Support Act of 1988. The most
notable provision increased the percentage of children, from 50% to 75% (i.e.,
paternity establishment percentage), for whom the state must establish paternity,
which was backed up by financial penalties linked to a reduction of federal matching

funds for the state’s AFDC program. States were required to have in effect, by
October 1, 1993, the following:
^!A simple civil process for voluntarily acknowledging paternity under
which the state must explain the rights and responsibilities of
acknowledging paternity and afford due process safeguards.
Procedures must include a hospital-based program for the voluntary
acknowledgment of paternity during the period immediately
preceding or following the birth of a child;
^!A law under which the voluntary acknowledgment of paternity
creates a rebuttable, or at state option, conclusive presumption of
paternity, and under which such voluntary acknowledgments are
admissible as evidence of paternity;
^!A law under which the voluntary acknowledgment of paternity must
be recognized as a basis for seeking a support order without
requiring any further proceedings to establish paternity;
^!Procedures which provide that any objection to genetic testing
results must be made in writing within a specified number of days
prior to any hearing at which such results may be introduced in
evidence; if no objection is made, the test results must be admissible
as evidence of paternity without the need for foundation testimony
or other proof of authenticity or accuracy;
^!A law which creates a rebuttable or, at the option of the state,
conclusive presumption of paternity upon genetic testing results
indicating a threshold probability of the alleged father being the
father of the child;
^!Procedures which require default orders in paternity cases upon a
showing that process has been served on the defendant and whatever
additional showing may be required by state law; and
^!Expedited processes for paternity establishment in contested cases
and full faith and credit to determinations of paternity made by other
states.
P.L. 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
The 1996 welfare reform law further strengthened the nation’s paternity
establishment system. In fact, many of the provisions adopted by P.L. 103-66 were
expanded and modified by P.L. 104-193. In addition to the basic requirement that
voluntary acknowledgments must automatically become legal findings of parentage
unless withdrawn, states are required: (1) to give full faith and credit to paternity
affidavits signed in another state according to its procedures; (2) to bar judicial or
administrative proceedings to ratify an unchallenged acknowledgment of paternity;
and (3) to enter a default order in a paternity case upon a showing of service of
process on the defendant and any additional showing required by state law.
P.L. 104-193 streamlined the paternity determination process; raised the
paternity establishment requirement from 75% to 90%; implemented a simple civil
process for establishing paternity; required a uniform affidavit to be completed by

men voluntarily acknowledging paternity and entitled such affidavit to full faith and
credit in any state; required both the mother and biological father to sign a voluntary
acknowledgment of paternity and stipulated that a signed acknowledgment of
paternity would be considered a legal finding of paternity unless rescinded within 60
days and thereafter may be challenged in court only on the basis of fraud, duress, or
material mistake of fact; and provided that no judicial or administrative action is
needed to ratify an acknowledgment that is not challenged. The 1996 law also
required states to publicize the availability and encouraged the use of procedures for
voluntary establishment of paternity and child support.
P.L. 105-33, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997
This law conformed the TANF penalty provisions to the CSE performance
measures. It stipulated that the HHS Secretary may penalize states using graduated
penalties that range between 1% and 5% of the TANF block grant amount and the
penalties may be for failing to meet the paternity establishment percentages or other
performance standards of the child support program or for either failing to submit
required data or for submitting unreliable data to the Secretary. Before penalties are
imposed, the state has a year to make corrective action. With regard to state laws
providing expedited procedures, the 1997 law required that information pertaining
to paternity or child support proceedings is to be filed with the state CSE case
registry. The 1997 law allowed states, in voluntary paternity acknowledgment cases,
to give the required notice of alternatives, legal consequences, and rights and
responsibility through the use of video or audio equipment, rather than orally.
Written notice is still required. The law also clarified that children excluded from the
paternity establishment percentage calculation are excluded regardless of whether the
state uses the CSE caseload as the base or all births in the state as a base.