Does the child support have to cover all the time since the child was born, creating arrearages just at the time the current payments are starting?
Do things like birthing costs have to be included in the prior child support? • States have the flexibility to determine whether or not to establish an amount representing support for periods prior to the date of the support order. States may decide whether and to what extent to include costs such as birthing costs in calculating the prior support. At the time a child support order is established, there can be flexibility in deciding how far back to go. In the PIQ and elsewhere OCSE encourages States to examine their policies for dealing with low income persons who owe child support. There may be circumstances involving low-income debtors that warrant consideration of compromising arrearages in accordance with State law. For example, Maryland recently initiated a pilot collaborative project in Baltimore between the IV-D [Child Support] program and three fatherhood programs under which a portion of arrearages owed to the State could be compromised for unemployed noncustodial parents who
