Alaska 95.1% vs Arkansas 64.1% cases with orders
PlainChildSupport's enforcement data shows a 31 percentage-point gap between the best and worst US jurisdictions on share of Title IV-D caseload with a support order established (OCSS Table P-64).
Research period: · OCSS FY2023 Table P-64 - 51 jurisdictions in current dataset
Research Question
Among the 51 US jurisdictions with published OCSS cases-with-orders rates, which sit at the top and bottom of the distribution, and how wide is the gap?
Methodology
We queried PlainChildSupport's states table for enforcement_orders_pct, populated from the OCSS FY2023 preliminary report Table P-64 (cases with support orders). We ranked all 51 reporting jurisdictions and reported the top 5 and bottom 5. We do not use enforcement_collection_rate: that column is NULL for every row because the preliminary report publishes no honest per-state collection-rate figure we can parse, and earlier hand-typed values were removed.
Findings
Alaska leads at 95.1% - the top of a 31-point spread
PlainChildSupport's states table lists Alaska's cases-with-orders share at 95.1% (OCSS Table P-64), the highest value across 51 jurisdictions.HHS Office of Child Support Services, FY2023 Preliminary Report, Table P-64 The top five:
- Alaska: 95.1% of caseload has a support order
- Maine: 94.8% of caseload has a support order
- Wyoming: 94.8% of caseload has a support order
- Connecticut: 94.4% of caseload has a support order
- Iowa: 94.1% of caseload has a support order
Alaska's position creates a 31-point spread to Arkansas at the bottom of the same column.HHS Office of Child Support Services, FY2023 Preliminary Report, Table P-64 Alaska child support guidelines and the orders-coverage ranking use this same population.
The bottom of the distribution: Arkansas at 64.1%
Arkansas anchors the states table at 64.1% cases with orders, the minimum across 51 jurisdictions.HHS Office of Child Support Services, FY2023 Preliminary Report, Table P-64 The bottom five:
- Arkansas: 64.1% of caseload has a support order
- Rhode Island: 73.9% of caseload has a support order
- Delaware: 76.4% of caseload has a support order
- Michigan: 76.9% of caseload has a support order
- District of Columbia: 76.9% of caseload has a support order
Arkansas child support guidelines and the full 51-jurisdiction directory expose the same enforcement_orders_pct column used here. Distributed collections (Table P-4) and caseloads (Table P-52) remain available on each state page; they are not mixed into this rate.
What this page no longer does: invent a per-state "collection rate." Earlier drafts cited Iowa 68.4% and Mississippi 49.3% from a hand-typed column. That column is gone, and empty charts beside those claims were the coupling tell.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Cases-with-orders measures the share of the IV-D caseload that has an enforceable support order on file, not dollars collected ÷ dollars owed. A lower share can reflect stricter case-counting or a larger share of cases still awaiting establishment, not only weaker enforcement. The FY2023 preliminary figures are subject to revision. This page deliberately does not publish a per-state collection rate.
Sources
- OCSS FY2023 Preliminary Report Table P-64 - https://www.acf.hhs.gov/css/policy-guidance/fy-2023-preliminary-data-report
- ACF Form 157 Performance Indicators - https://www.acf.hhs.gov/css/policy-guidance
- NCSL Child Support Guidelines - https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/child-support