The Nation - News from Aug. 21, 1987

Women received 12% less in child support payments in 1985 than they did two years earlier, and just over half of all women due payments got less than full payment or nothing at all, the Census Bureau said. Child support payments averaged $2,220 for women getting payments in 1985, the government said, basing its report on a spring 1986 survey. The 12.4% decline in payments from 1983, after adjusting for inflation, came partly because the amount of money due women fell 8% in the same period.