The Child Support Performance and Incentive Act at 20: Examining Trends in State Performance

Twenty years have passed since Congress enacted P.L. 105-200, the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act (CSPIA), dramatically restructuring the child support performance incentive system. Prior to its passage in 1998, there was growing concern that the incentive system lacked an effective impetus for improving state progress toward achieving the program’s goals since all states received a minimum incentive payment based solely on its child support collections. With the 20th anniversary of CSPIA’s passage, there is renewed attention on the performance-based incentive system and its role in improving program performance.  This brief builds on previous work examining national trends in child support performance, and concludes with a discussion of next steps for future analysis.