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By James Roberts
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The United States faces more than $115 billion in accumulated child support arrears, owed in cases enforced through the government child support enforcement program, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Behind that number are millions of children who may be missing financial support that courts have already determined they are entitled to receive.
The scale of the issue matters because child support is designed to serve a specific purpose: protecting children’s economic stability during their dependent years. Reports published by the United States Census Bureau identify child support as an important source of income for custodial families, particularly those navigating financial challenges, and track the gap between support that is owed and support that is actually received. When payments do not arrive, the financial consequences often fall on the households responsible for meeting children’s daily needs.
The challenge extends beyond individual family circumstances. According to data from 2022, approximately one in four children under the age of 21 lived with one parent while the other parent lived outside the household, creating a large population of children for whom consistent financial support from both parents can be a critical factor in household stability. For these families, unpaid child support is not simply a missed transaction. It can affect the ability to cover essentials, plan for the future, and provide children with consistent opportunities.
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Despite the size of the problem, the national conversation around child support has often centered on enforcement after payments are missed rather than on preventing financial instability before it occurs. The federal child support program has helped collect billions of dollars annually, yet the continued accumulation of arrears raises questions about whether current systems fully measure the scale of unpaid obligations and whether families have sufficient support when payments fail.
For Carla D’Andre, founder of Pay Kids First Foundation, this represents a fundamental shift in how America should view child support. She believes the issue should be understood primarily through the lens of children’s financial security rather than as a conflict between parents.
“People often assume that when a court assigns child support, the payment will arrive on time and in full every month,” D’Andre says. “What is rarely explained is that there is a possibility of default and no collateral. Parents receiving support are often unaware that they may become creditors of unpaid child support while trying to raise their children and manage their own financial responsibilities.”
She argues that the current system often responds after financial hardship has already occurred. She believes more attention is needed on prevention, transparency and early intervention so families are better prepared when support obligations are not fulfilled.
A significant challenge, according to D’Andre, is that the scale of unpaid child support debt has not always been fully visible. She explains that existing measurements often focus on overall collection performance rather than examining the size and severity of individual unpaid debts.
“Using a risk analysis approach, you look at two things: frequency and severity,” D’Andre says. “How often does it happen, and how large are the losses? When I examined child support debt through that lens, it revealed how much more information is needed to understand the true scope of the problem and the scale of some of these individual debts, signaling current laws don’t prevent severity.”
She believes that better data collection could help policymakers develop more effective solutions. Without a clear understanding of the size of outstanding debts and the families affected, meaningful improvements become more difficult to implement.
According to her, the challenges facing child support enforcement are also influenced by differences between states, varying procedures and the complexity of collecting long-term unpaid obligations. D’Andre notes that child support is unique because it functions as an unsecured financial obligation, yet receiving parents are often not given the same type of risk information that exists in other financial systems.
“When someone applies for unsecured credit, there are systems that evaluate the likelihood of repayment,” she says. “Parents receiving child support are rarely given that same type of information about the likelihood of payments being made. That reality should be part of the conversation around reform.”
For D’Andre, the most important consideration is the impact on children. Unpaid support can contribute to housing instability, limited educational opportunities and increased financial stress within single-parent households. Over time, she adds, those challenges can influence children’s confidence, expectations and understanding of responsibility.
Speaking from her perspective as a mother, D’Andre believes financial support carries a deeper message for children.
“A child understands that even a small item in a store requires payment. They understand value. When a child does not receive the support they were promised, it can affect how they perceive their own worth and whether they feel valued,” she says. “Providing for a child is one of the ways parents demonstrate responsibility, commitment, love and care.”
She emphasizes that this issue should not be framed as a conflict between mothers and fathers. Instead, she believes it should be viewed as a children’s welfare issue that requires cooperation among families, communities and policymakers.
“Other countries have demonstrated that stronger systems are possible through government-supported payment structures, centralized collection mechanisms and more proactive enforcement approaches,” she notes. “These examples show that child support reform can be achieved through thoughtful policy design and improved accountability.”
D’Andre believes awareness is an essential part of reform. Many families enter the child support process without understanding the possibility of nonpayment or the steps required to pursue enforcement. “Parents raising children while working to provide stability do not have the time or resources to become their own collection agencies of unsecured long-term installment debt,” D’Andre says. “The system should recognize that families need support, information and tools before financial hardship becomes a crisis.”
A stronger child support system requires better data, improved accountability and policies designed around children’s long-term well-being. The question facing policymakers is not simply how much money remains unpaid. It is how long children should continue carrying the consequences of a system that was created to support them.
“Every child deserves to know that they are valued, supported and worth investing in,” D’Andre says. “When society demands that child support is treated as a children’s financial security issue, meaningful reform can begin.”
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