Are the Demographics of the Child Support Population Changing?
OCSE recently funded a demographic study of and report on the child support program’s possible future population, seeking information about its likely composition in the years 2004 and 2009. The projections made in the report for the years 2004 and 2009 are built on baseline data developed by the contractor for 1988 and 1998. The following is excerpted from the final report. The rapid growth of the child support population of the United States over the past decade is projected to slow between 1998 and 2009. Our projections suggest that the growth of the child support population over the next 10 years will continue to outpace the total population growth in the United States, but will not be as remarkable as the growth of the previous 10 years. In 1998, the child support population of the United States reached an estimated 62 million people, a 32 percent increase from 1988. By 2009, we project that the child support population of the United States will reach 72 million people, a 15 perce
