Office of Attorney General

One of the oldest forms of welfare is the OAG, Office of Attorney General. The OAG pertains to child support, which is the help provided to children abandoned by either father or mother. Child support laws existed since the beginning of the United States goes back into the thirteen colonies. At first, the only authority that was in charge of child support was the judiciary branch, no agencies existed that would take this kind of cases. Unfortunately, as we have come along, single mothers with abandoned children have increased. Since there has been an increment, the Social Security Act of 1935, created first the AFDC, now known as TANF, which government provided minimum assistance to the needy child by giving health benefits and money. Since many obligated parents were not complying in paying, the Social Security Act of 1965 and 1967 provided information to government of addresses, employers, and even tax information to track the obligator. In the state of Texas, the guidelines that pertains as to how much you will pay for child support are as follows: one child is 20% of net resources, two children is 25% percent, three children is 30%, but the limit is 40% no matter how many children you have. The child support calculation does consider whether you earn commissions, overtime, tips, bonuses, ect. When you are paying child support, should you die, it does not mean that you stop paying. What the agency does is that it recalculates the monthly payment amount and health insurance amount needed to be covered up until the 18th birthday of the child; then they would deduct all of that from your assets if satisfied, the case is closed. The only way to end child support is if child reaches 18 years of age and graduates from High School, marries, dies, or court closes case. The most recent statistics as of 2002 show: 84% if child support providers are men, 50% of the people who make child support payments are younger than the age of forty.