Volume 1.1 - Election Issues - Fall 1996

Title: Establishing Paternity: Can States Meet the 90 Percent Welfare Reform Standard?

Author: Robert G. Williams

Abstract: With non-marital births now accounting for one-third of all births in this country, Congress has mandated a series of measures to increase the number of out-of-wedlock children who become legally linked to their fathers. These requirements embodied in the recent welfare reform legislation [P.L. 104-193] are directed at the Title IV-D child support enforcement agencies because these are the only public entities charged with establishing paternity. Perhaps the most significant measure is the promulgation of a 90 percent standard: that states must either establish paternity for 90 percent of the cases in their IV-D caseloads (the "IV-D standard"), or they must establish paternity for 90 percent of all non-marital births in the state (the "universal standard"). Although this seems at first to be an Olympian goal, experience of some states suggest that it can be attained with the right strategy and reasonable investments of resources.

About the Author:

Robert G. Williams is President of Policy Studies, Inc. (PSI), a research, technology, and privatization corporation specializing in child support enforcement and other human services programs. He oversees the operations of 16 privatized child support enforcement offices operated by PSI in Massachusetts, New Jersey and several other states. He holds a B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago and M.P.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University.

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