New Powers to Collect Child Support Urged

States should be given the authority to ask employers in other states to withhold wages of parents delinquent on child support, a General Accounting Office report recommended Wednesday.

At a press conference, Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), who wrote a law that permits the withholding of wages of delinquent parents, said that interstate efforts to enforce child support payments are bogged down by conflicting procedures and spotty enforcement.

The report said that a request to withhold wages within a state usually takes 16 weeks to process but that an out-of-state request can take up to two years. The GAO said several overlapping methods for handling the requests between states account for much of the confusion and delay.

Bradley said that nearly $24 billion was owed last year in child support and that only $5 billion was collected.