Most people don’t understand that 70% of outstanding child support debt in California is owed to the government—not to children. And that low-income parents in California make hundreds of millions of dollars in child support payments each year that never go to their children. That’s because we require low-income parents to pay back the cost of public assistance used by low-income mothers and children. This inequitable system takes money away from children in poverty, sets low-income parents up to fail and discourages parents from making payments at all.