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Opinion of the Court
Without distinguishing among the numerous rights that might have been created by this federally funded welfare program, the Court of Appeals agreed in sweeping terms that "Title IV-D creates enforceable rights in families in need of Title IV-D services." 68 F. 3d, at 1150. The Court of Appeals did not specify exactly which "rights" it was purporting to recognize, but it apparently believed that federal law gave respondents the right to have the State substantially comply with Title IV-D in all respects. We disagree.
As an initial matter, the lower court's holding that Title IV-D "creates enforceable rights" paints with too broad a brush. It was incumbent upon respondents to identify with particularity the rights they claimed, since it is impossible to determine whether Title IV-D, as an undifferentiated whole, gives rise to undefined "rights." Only when the complaint is broken down into manageable analytic bites can a court ascertain whether each separate claim satisfies the various criteria we have set forth for determining whether a federal statute creates rights. See, e. g., Golden State, supra, at 106 (asking whether the "provision in question" was designed to benefit the plaintiff).
In prior cases, we have been able to determine whether or not a statute created a given right because the plaintiffs articulated, and lower courts evaluated, well-defined claims. In Wright, for example, we held that tenants of public housing projects had a right to have their utility costs included within a rental payment that did not exceed 30 percent of their income. We did not ask whether the federal housing legislation generally gave rise to rights; rather, we focused our analysis on a specific statutory provision limiting "rent" to 30 percent of a tenant's income. 479 U. S., at 430. Similarly, in Wilder, we held that health care providers had an enforceable right to reimbursement at "reasonable and adequate rates" as required by a particular provision in the Medicaid statute. 496 U. S., at 511-512. And in Suter v. Artist M., 503 U. S. 347 (1992), where we held that Title
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