21 Facts About Child support

Child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship.

The 1992 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child support is a binding convention signed by every member nation of the United Nations and formally ratified by all but the United States.

Child support is based on the policy that both parents are obliged to financially support their children, even when the children are not living with both parents.

Child support includes the financial support of children and not other forms of support, such as emotional support, intellectual support, physical care, or spiritual support.

Child support paid by a non-custodial parent or obligor does not absolve the obligor of the responsibility for costs associated with their child staying with the obligor in their home during visitation.

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Furthermore, child support is established between parents if joint custody is awarded, but the child spends most of the time with one of the parents.

In some jurisdictions, such as Australia, child support recipients are trusted to use support payments in the best interest of the child, and thus are not required to provide details on specific purchases.

In California, there is no limitations, accountability, or other restriction on how the obligee spends the child support received, it is merely presumed that the money is spent on the child.

For example, if the obligee is currently receiving a monthly check from the government, all current Child support collected during said month is paid to the government to reimburse the monies paid to the obligee.

Half of US states pass along none of the child support they collect to low-income families receiving welfare and other assistance, instead reimbursing themselves and the federal government.

Some countries and states have provisions that allow support to continue past the age of majority if the child is enrolled as a full-time, degree-seeking post-secondary student.

Child support is determined by the number of children and the obligor's income.

One focus of Article 27 of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child is the establishment and strengthening of international treaties to further aid in child-support order enforcement across national and international boundaries.

In New York, continuous failure to provide child support is an E felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison.

Since the duty to provide child support is separate from the civil requirement to obey a court order regarding visitation, it is exceptionally rare for a parent to be jailed for violating that part of the court order.

Critics of child support argue that, as a result, the support payments do not need to be used to support the child and can be regarded as a punishment to the parent who is paying child support.

Critics of child support suggest that support orders carry the threat of state violence to give the resident parent a degree of financial control over the non-resident parent, and even that the enforcement of child support can be considered domestic violence or abuse.

Some parents argue that they should be permitted to directly provide for their children, with those provisions being credited against child support or taking the place of any payment to the other parent.

Some argue that being ordered to pay child support reduces their ability to directly provide for their children.

However, courts uniformly recognize that the custodial parent will incur expenses for the care of children that a non-custodial parent might prefer not to pay, and that giving the non-custodial parent direct control over how child support is used would in many cases result in abusive or controlling behavior by the child support payor.

States have claimed to have found no gender discrimination in the child-support system, as child support is based upon income and custody arrangements and not on gender.