This report focuses on the child support income that custodial parents reported receiving from noncustodial parents living elsewhere, and other types of support, such as health insurance and noncash assistance.¹ The most recent data in this report are from the Child Support Supplement (CSS) to the April 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS). The report provides demographic information about custodial parents as of 2012, as well as about child support and other income or program data for the 2011 calendar year.² It also shows trends over the past 18 years by comparing data collected from the 1994 April CPS and subsequent biennial surveys. (See the text box “Limitations of the Data” for additional survey information.) The estimates from the April 2012 CPS-CSS use new population controls based on the results from the 2010 Census.

__________
¹ The custodial parent is the parent with whom the child(ren) lived during the survey interview when their other parent(s) lived outside the household. There may also be equal joint- or split-custody arrangements of children between parents, sometimes also known as shared or coparenting. In these types of arrangements, child support may or may not be exchanged between parents.
² The population represented (the population universe) is the civilian noninstitutionalized population living in the United States, 15 years of age or older, who have their own children under 21 years old living with them while the other parent lives outside the household.

Current Population Survey: