CS Reform Issues: Child Support Calculation

In a previous post I stated that I agreed that child support amounts should be based on income, which is currently what is done in New Hampshire. However, the current method is inequitable, in that it effectively ONLY includes the obligor's income. Further, there is no limit on the amount (i.e. fixed percentage) across all income levels.

As an example: if two parents each make $100k gross annually, the obligor is required to pay the obligee approximately $23,400 annually for two children under the current guidelines. assuming no deductions and excluding medical insurance payments by either party. In theory, the obligee is also providing the same, for a total of almost $47,000 earmarked solely for child rearing purposes. This theoretical amount is absurd. There comes a level of income where the amount dedicated solely for the children's maintenance and well-being is a diminishing percentage of the parents' total as cited by Espenshade 's study, which is one of the basis for the NH guidelines.

The obligee's income is also effectively ignored in the support calculation. Using the above scenario, if the obligee's income was raised to $500,000 annually, the obligor would still be liable to pay approximately $22,000 annually to the obligee. Again, this is a direct result of a failure to cap and apportion increased income.

Another failure of the system is that it does not take into account shared parenting time. In addition to the Espenshade study, NH also borrows heavily from the Wisconsin Child Support guideline, which itself is based on a flawed interpretation of a study by University of Wisconson researcher Dr. Jacques van der Gaag in 1984. His cost guidelines were predicated on a number of assumptions, including that the children lived with a custodial parent 100% of the time. However, the NH-adopted guidelines make no allowance for the fact that a "non-custodial" parent must still provide a home for their children and incur additional child-related expenses while the children are in their care.

Finally, the issue of uninsured medical expenses and shared cost of certain "extraordinary expenses" is ill-defined and ill-apportioned. Again, using the previous 50/50 income example, the net result is one parent has 2/3 of the combined incomes and the other has only 1/3. Yet these "miscellaneous" expenses are ALWAYS apportioned 50/50 between parents. These expenses should be apportioned the same as child support.