To make a long story short(er), my brother pays so much in child support that he has had to sell his house, one of his vehicles and move back in with my parents. He currently pays almost 1/2 of his income to child support. To me, this isn’t fair. He has tried to get it lowered, but the Judge told him he basically has to become 100% disabled or fully handicapped before it would be lowered.
What’s worse is when they determined how much he will be paying; he didn’t even have a job. The State used their “formula” by going by the highest paying job he had in the past!
I’ve also been dealing with these issues for the past 5 years as well, but not on the scale my brother has dealt with. I was injured (everything was documented by three doctors) and out of work for 6 months with no income (waiting on a settlement and had proof that was shown to the Judge) and I was threatened with incarceration if I didn’t pay. I felt like I was being treated like a criminal.
Do you feel the current Child Support System is a good one?
You’re right, it isn’t fair. I’ve never seen a child support formula that requires anyone to pay half their gross. In New York, it’s 17% for one child; I think for 3 children it’s something like 38%. For most people, even that is a huge burden. Considering tax rates in New York, you’re looking at more than half your paycheck disappearing before you even see it. And you don’t get a rent break if you need another bedroom only part of the time. A two-bedroom apartment is a lot more expensive that a studio 'round these parts.
The problem is not always the laws but how much leeway a judge has in interpretation. I’ve seem the same thing in relocation cases. Two judges can render completely different decisions. It’s maddening.
The fairest thing would be to split a child’s expenses down the middle – give him or her a debit card and everything comes out of that, with both parents paying in. I can see myriad reasons why this wouldn’t work, though (food, for one), but at least if both parents had limited incomes they would both see the need to economize, and any overspending would hit them just as hard.
It’s always going to be more expensive running two households on the same two incomes that ran one, and when money is limited (ie, in probably 90% of the single-parent households in this country) someone is going to end up getting screwed. Personally, I don’t want to see my child’s other parent have their life wrecked by their responsibilities, but that’s just me. Does his ex have an income, is she remarried? Was this an especially vicious divorce? Obviously your brother’s ex-wife doesn’t mind so much that it’s him who can’t afford a life of his own. I’d ask her what kind of example she thinks this sets for her children when they are with him. And I’d remind your brother that no matter how awful this is, he’d probably rather be the one shouldering the financial burden instead of his kids.
How many children does your brother have, and by how many custodial parents?
How much is he in arrears?
In my state, wage withholdings are limited to 65% of adjusted income, but that only happens when the NCP has multiple children by multiple wo/men, and has had an additional amount added to the withholding to pay off arrearages.
Oh, and most states have provisions for an administrative review of the support amounts that don’t require going before a judge. However, you usually only get one of them every three years, and they’ve got even less leeway for bending the rules than the judges do.
They will also base their calculations on your average income over a period of time rather than your income at any particular moment. If the kid was living in your house, would you stop feeding them until your worker’s comp came through?
What’ll usually happen is you’ll accrue arrears for that period, which you’ll then start paying off once you get a job and a wage withholding is in effect.
The formula seems to be trying to address deadbeats who would purposefully hurt the child’s custodial parent by taking a lower paying job or by hiding income. Unfortunately, either the state’s law or the judge/arbiter isn’t flexible enough realize that sometimes people involuntarily have their pay cut.
Also, is it 1/2 of his net or gross? If he’s in arrears, that may also be factoring into the equation.
He is in Maryland. The Judge declared that he is $16,000 in arrears. He has two girls with the same woman and pays $1630 a month and an extra $150 on top of that for arrears. We worked it out and it’s 45% of his monthly gross salary.
No, and I see what you are saying, but it doesn’t take $1780 a month to feed and cloth your child. I also understand child support goes towards everything for the child, rent, vehicles and any other kind of well being.
But to me, taking just about half of the parent’s salary is not fair no matter how you “adjust” things.
Obviously not. But we wouldn’t eat out nearly as often (if at all) and I’d probably put off buying the $75 sneakers my son needs for basketball. If a custodial parent’s spending fluctates with income, why shouldn’t a non-custodial parent’s?
I’m not going to tell you that it doesn’t suck to be him. Using your numbers, he’s making about $4,000/month. $1,730 in child support, guess another $1,120 (28%) in payroll deductions, and he’s getting by on $1,150. I can see the difficulty in maintaining a vehicle (forget two) and even a cheap apartment on that. Too add insult to injury, he might not qualify for free legal aid on a $48,000/year salary. Unfortunately, he really needs a family lawyer to protect his own interests, and not simply rely on the judge. One thing, he’s better off paying the arrears at $150/month for the next 9 years rather than trying to accelerate it. That’s an interest free loan. If, as you claim and I have no reason to disbelieve, the original order was based on a higher salary, he is protected for a while from future raises.
I understand the law’s goal - to protect the custodial parent from a deadbeat who will abuse the system to lower payments. Unfortunately, in protecting the custodial parent, they beat down the honest non-custodial parent. In a situation like this, at what point does it become pointless to even work any longer? What if he were only making $3,000/month - I’d like to believe that the court would offer him some protection (not saying it would, but I’d like to believe it).
Yes, it’s unfair. For the people who approach it honestly, often they are pretty screwed. Local municipalities are overburdened by deadbeat payers of child support, and I think oftentimes judges and arbitrators look at anyone who has to pay child support as a potential deadbeat, and just nail them.
Sorry, but 1600 bucks a month to support 2 kids is absolutely ridiculous. 1600 will make a mortgage paymont on an entire house and leave enough for groceries, and that’s far more than the kids need, especially if it’s causing hardship on the non-custodial parent. Unfortunately, I rarely ever hear about a situation where one party or the other isn’t getting taken for a ride.
Still a lot of unaswered questions. For instance, was she a stay at home mom? Is she currently working? If so, what does day-care cost? For two kids, that alone can be several hundred a month. Who is paying health care costs? If it’s mom, that can be another big cost. It’s not just a matter of food, shelter & clothing. Do the kids have any extracurricular activities that require additional money? How did he end up so far in arrears? Was it due to illness, layoff, or simply defaulting on court-ordered payments? All of these can have an impact on the court’s decision.
In several years of handling multi-state payrolls, I’ve never seen a state that allows more than 50% of adjusted gross (gross less FICA, Fed & state taxes) except in unusual circumstances, as black rabbit stated above, when 65% is allowed in some states.
The system isn’t perfect, but how would you suggest overhauling it? It’s impossible to create a system that can’t be abused. It’s not a bad system for the most part, considering the enormous challenges of tracking many of these deadbeat parents (and yes, I see withholding orders for plenty of moms as well, although dad is not often the custodial parent in those cases).
Given that the CP’s actual housing needs are greater than the NCP’s in this scenario, $1600 sounds just about. Since we don’t know her income, that’s the best we’re going to be able to do.
Well, I don’t know that that’s quite a fair assessment.
First, if you read the document, they actually included housing costs in that 10-11 thousand dollar estimate.
So, the non-custodial parent, in this case, is actually paying around 90-95% of the average entire cost of raising the two kids, including housing (depending on the age of the children).
The 10-11k figure is based on an average family income of $57,400. For that to be true in our case, Mom would have to be making $10,000 per year. If she’s making more, the average cost of child rearing goes up, and so does her share.
He’s maybe getting screwed by a few percentage points, but $1600 is far from ridiculous for two kids.
I’m not following. First, the 43-72k demographic on average spends 10-11k a year per child. So, mom has room for an almost 30,000 income before they move into a different demographic (as determined by Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion… I’m not sure why they chose 43-72k as a range?).
Second, as I said before, $1600 a month is $9600 a year per child. The average spent on children per year is roughly 10-11k. In what way is having one parent being responsible for close to all of the financial burden of raising the children an issue of a few percentage points, or anything other than ridiculous?
And, I think you twist meaning a little. The cost of child-rearing does not go up. The average amount of money spent by families per child per year goes up. If I make $700k, it is not more expensive for me to have a child than if I make one tenth of that a year. That’s like saying that if I earn more money owning cars becomes more expensive because I choose to buy a new Audi instead of a beat-up Subaru.
Ditto on the range thing, especially since they’re doing an average. The way I’m reading it, the figures they’re giving for average expenditures per child roughly correspond to that of a family with an average income for the range. In the middle range, that’s $57k.
If one parent has a signficantly larger income than the other, it is perfectly reasonable. I bring home almost four times as much money as my wife every month, so I contribute proportionally more to the household expenses.
Technically, the children can be fed nothing but ramen, be clothed in old newspapers, and live under a bridge. However, most legislatures have decided that children are generally entitled to a certain standard of living based (mostly) on the income of their parents.