Millions of children have an absent parent, and as a result face serious problems which affect our American society. A majority of single parents who do not receive child support live below or near the poverty line and rely on government assistance to supplement their income, demonstrating a positive correlation between absent parent families and welfare; the government must become proactive to reduce these numbers and lessent the burden on taxpayers by reforming the means of enforcing child support payments.
*According to the US Census Bureau, there were over 13.5 million non widowed single parents.
*These single parents raise 23 million children.
*Both men and women are guilty of abandoning their children.
*Only 57.3% of single parents have an official court regulated child support order.
*Over 16% of single parents do not seek child support orders because they do not want contact with the absent parent.
*Children who have a natural parent living elsewhere are three times more likely to be poor.
*About 53% of single parents lived below the poverty level in 2005. And about 25% of single parents are classified as low income.
*American children are owed over $92 billion...That's the gross national product of Egypt!!
*Among families that receive child support, the income from child support averages between 13% - 28% of their income.
*Less than 52% of child support owed was payed to single parent families living in poverty in 2005. Only 39% of the poor families which received child support were payed the full amount. Sadly, 27% of these single parent families living in poverty received no payments at all.
*Children with an absent parent are four times more likely to receive public assistance...over 53% of single parents owed child support receive some sort of public assistance. This is over 10 MILLION children!
*The DHHS budgets over $4 billion to enforce child support annually. How effective are they? These enforcement policies need to be reformed!
If you have any questions about my information, I will be happy to share my sources with you, as they are scholarly and reliable sources.