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Nanyamka Cagan
SWK 325
Policy analysis
Fall 2015
The Child Support Enforcement (CSE) Amendments of 1984
I can confidently say that we all have a pretty good amount of knowledge about what
child support is and how it works. Child Support was modeled from the Elizabethan Poor laws
and was brought about by the federal government to aid the women and children living in
poverty after a divorce or death of the patriarchal figure. This paper will analyze this policy on a
federal level and briefly discuss how its implementation affected the United States Virgin Islands
I will also give a fairly detailed description of the history of the policy, unanticipated
consequences, its alternatives and political constraints of the implementation of this policy.
In the early 19th century numerous cases of divorce resulted in many divorced women
having to live in poverty. Prior knowledge had suggested that these women were living in
poverty because their spouses had died. The idea for ADC was the support of widows but other
mothers also needed support. It is only then that society realized that there are no laws
obligating parents to provide financial support for their children. In fact there literally was only a
law, adapted from English laws, stating that the father only had to provide moral support and
this was not enforceable. Another English law adapted by the American penal system actually
made it illegal to receive any kind of support from a parent unless it was pre-authorized by the
father through a legal contract. The court system was where child support orders were made.
It was only after the many cases of divorced women and their children being forced into
poverty came about that part D of Title IV of the social security Act program was created in
1975, also referred to as the IV-D program. The 1950 Amendments of the Social Security Acts
required State welfare agencies to notify appropriate law enforcement officials upon providing
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to a child who was abandoned or deserted by
a parent .From the amendments of 1950 to 1975 the government focused the enforcement of
child support laws on children who received public assistance, attempting to decrease the need
for welfare assistance. The act only provided funds for the states to collect child support and
establish paternity for those families seeking child support benefits. Before Child Support Acts
became the program we know today there was the mother’s aid program and the Aid to
