Does My Ex Have to Get a Job in Order to Qualify for Child Support in Atlanta?
If you’re paying child support in Atlanta, you may be frustrated to learn that your former spouse is unemployed. You may wonder why you are expected to work tirelessly to provide for your former spouse, while they are allowed to sit back and enjoy a life of leisure. You may ask whether Georgia law requires a parent receiving child support to seek employment.
Georgia Law Does Not Require a Parent Receiving Child Support to Work
There is no law that requires child support recipients to seek or find employment in Georgia. Your former spouse, therefore, could theoretically become completely reliant on your child support payment and refuse to find a job. Child support is intended to benefit the child, not the parent, however, the parent receiving child support payments can rely on the payments as well. That being said, there are a number of issues that your former spouse might encounter if they attempt this strategy.
The Family Court Will Consider Your Former Spouse’s Earning Capacity
When it comes to child support, if a parent does not receive actual income, the family court may “impute” income based on their determination of the parent’s earning capacity. In other words, if a party is unemployed due to their own actions, or lack thereof, the court considers what that party is capable of earning, not what they actually earn in a given week, month, or year. Accordingly, f your former spouse chooses not to work, the family court will still likely “assign” them income based on their earning capacity. This may be the amount your spouse earned from their most recent employment, or, if your spouse has not been working for some time, this may be minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour (approximately $15,000 per year).
Next, the family court will use the income imputed to your former spouse’s to calculate your child support obligation. In other words, the family court will account for your former’s spouse’s choice to remain unemployed when determining your child support obligation.
What if I’m a High-Income Individual?
If you’re a high-income individual, you may face relatively high child support obligations. Even if the family court were to factor in your former spouse’s earning capacity, your child support obligation may be high enough to sustain a relatively high standard of living for your former spouse without requiring them to seek or obtain employment. While that may seem unfair, child support is based on multiple statutory factors, including each parent’s income, parenting time, and the needs of the child.
If you believe your child support obligation does not reflect your family’s circumstances, there are multiple options to address this issue. First, you may consider seeking a direct modification of your current child support obligation. Second, you may consider seeking a modification of your parenting time arrangement to support a modification of your child support obligation. The more parenting time you have with your children, the lower your child support obligation will be. The logic is simple: if you have more parenting time with your children, you will be paying for more of their day-to-day expenses directly, and your former spouse will be responsible for less of the same.
Can a Child Support Lawyer in Atlanta Help Me?
Although there’s no law that forces your former spouse to work in order to receive child support, child support in Atlanta often is not enough to fully sustain a household and cover child related expenses, requiring your former spouse to obtain employment for additional income. If you believe your children are suffering because of your former spouse’s refusal to work or are concerned about how your child support payments are being used, you could potentially petition for a modification of child support and/or custody. Contact the Atlanta child support lawyers at Kaye, Lembeck, Hitt & French today for further guidance.
Source:
dhs.georgia.gov/division-child-support-services
