I recently stumbled across a conservative estimate regarding paternity fraud which suggests a range of 1-3.7% of children born aren't the biological children of the men who think they're the father. That said, I'm trying to ascertain rough estimates of how much money is in play here.

Here's the article, and I've an email out to the author to ascertain the source of her percentages.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/20/opinion/la-oe-zuk-paternity-20100620

Birth rates suggest there are roughly four million children born annually, though in 2013 there were 3.93 million per the CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db175.htm

Low end estimate

1% =39,300 per 2013 CDC link above

Median child support payment of $430.00 per month per https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/children/cb12-109.html

39300/50= 786 men per state

Median CS payment would put the total per state collected at 4,055,760 annually on the low end then we'd need to calculate the percentage of matching rates for the administrative costs.

However, total taken would still exceed 200 million annually.

High end estimate

3.7%= 145,410 men nationwide again per the CDC link above. Dealing again with the median child support payment of $430.00 a month

145,410/50= 2908.2 men per state for a total of $15,006,312.00 in potential revenue lost per state per year, or a grand total of $750,315,600.00 annually nationwide.

Adjusted due to inaccurate calculations. This reflects the cash actually taken due to paternity fraud without the federal matching funds for administrative costs. That has yet to be calculated.