Getting Child Support Help

By Staff Writer

Child support help varies according to the custody arrangement you have worked out with your spouse. If one parent has primary custody of the children, then the other parent, known as the noncustodial parent, is usually obligated to pay child support. The parent with primary custody is considered to be "paying" their child support with their time and effort of raising the kids.

If it seems as if the custodial parent is getting off scot-free, studies show that in fact the custodial parent usually ends up paying three times the amount of money as the non-custodial parent for the children's necessities. Some states will deduct "reasonable living expenses" from a parent's income before determining the amount of child support he or she must pay. Some states will not.

Child Support in Joint Custody
In joint child custody, parents usually expect no child support help from the other spouse. If parents share custody on a 50-50 basis, where the children spend an equal amount of time in both households, then family divorce law does not expect one spouse to pay anything to the other spouse. This can change at the judge's discretion; for example, if one spouse earns much more than the other spouse, and the standard of living for the family was much higher before the divorce, then the judge may order child support in order to equalize the circumstances of the two households.

The judge may also suspend child support law guidelines if the 50-50 plan is not equitable. For example, the judge will take the total of the parents' combined incomes, and then find the percent of each income to the whole. If the ex-husband is a teacher earning $35,000, and the ex-wife is an administrator earning $60,000, then the family court judge is likely to allocate expenses more along a 60-40 split favoring the lower wage earner.