Press Releases

President Biden Signs into Law Legislation to Strengthen Child Welfare System and Bolster Child Support Enforcement Efforts, Includes Moore-Led Proposals

Congresswoman Gwen Moore applauds President Joe Biden for signing into law the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act (H.R. 9076) which reauthorizes Title IV-B funding for child welfare programs and bolsters child support enforcement efforts for tribal, state, and local governments.

“As co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, I know that helping our foster youth and foster families is so important. I am proud to have worked with colleagues to shape this legislation to improve the foster care system and assist state and tribal governments with child support enforcement.  This law includes provisions I authorized on a bipartisan basis to ensure struggling families aren’t separated solely due to poverty.  This has been a long time focus for me and many advocates, and I will continue to work to prevent inappropriate family separations. The bill also includes language I championed to support the provision of short-term funding to meet housing, food, transportation and other basic needs that can be critical to keeping families together. This bill also includes my proposal to ensure that in developing their foster care plans, states work with young people and families who have experience with the foster care system, so foster care policies can better reflect their lived experiences and the needs of those who are being served.

I also helped advance a provision in this bill to protect the ability of states governments to recover overdue child support by intercepting federal tax refunds while extending that authority to tribal governments, reinforcing tribal sovereignty. It is critical that all families get child support payments they are entitled to receive. Governor Evers was a strong advocate for this part of the bill, spearheading a bipartisan group of 26 governors who worked hard to see it pass.”

“Millions of families across our nation, many of whom already live below the federal poverty line, depend on child support payments to make ends meet and provide for our kids,” said Gov. Evers. “I’m grateful to President Biden for signing the Supporting America’s Children and Families Act into law and making this legislative fix so we can make sure kids and families here in Wisconsin and across our nation have the support they need and deserve.”

H.R. 9076 includes:

• An increase in mandatory (non-appropriated) funding for the MaryLee Allen Promoting Safe and Stable Families program (PSSF) for the first time since 2006, raising it from $345 million per year to $420 million per year. Most of the new funding would increase the annual grants states receive for services that stabilize families to prevent foster care entry, address challenges so that children in foster care can return home, live permanently with family members, or be adopted, and support children and their families after they leave foster care.
• The bill increases funding provided directly to Indian tribes for child welfare services, guaranteeing them 3 percent of overall IV-B funding, reducing administrative burden for tribes.
• The legislation secures a $6 million increase in annual funding to support child welfare caseworkers.
• The legislation provides up to $34 million (authorized) for demonstration grants to support meaningful relationships between children in foster care and their incarcerated parents.
• Allow Native American tribes that operate child support services programs to access limited tax information for the purpose of child support collection and allow state and tribal contractors to access the data.