Here’s what our Pittsburgh Family Lawyers have been talking about recently:

Court-ordered child support can sometimes be difficult to collect. The Federal Government sets a standard requiring that the states collect at least 80% of all outstanding child support obligations, but that benchmark is only very rarely achieved.

Pennsylvania is, in fact, the only state that is currently meeting or exceeding all guidelines. However, there is always room for improvement. In recent months, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Child Support Enforcement has been re-tabulating and recalculating their data to create a payment score calculator that “scores” potential child support obligors on how likely they are to pay. This allows for better and more efficient mechanisms for enforcing child support in the state.

In an interview, Dan Richard, the Director of the Bureau of Child Support Enforcement in Pennsylvania, said “Once the basic information about a case is put on the computer, you can press a button and it will automatically calculate a score that projects the likelihood of payment.”

The Pennsylvania support calculator takes into account over 20 factors that have been shown to predict the likelihood of on-time child support payment, including age, employment status, and number of prior current child support cases. A parent receiving a low score (meaning less likely to remain current on their support payments) could potentially be connected with services to help them, such as job training and placement services.

This calculator, which went online only within the last few months, has already led to more efficiency in support collections, which will benefit parents, children, and society as a whole. Pennsylvania is at the forefront of utilizing this technology to ensure that child support is being enforced in an efficient manner.

If you would like to speak with one of our Pennsylvania Child Support Attorneys or have questions generally about child support, please call us at Taybron Law Firm, LLC today.