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Unemployment Benefits Increasingly Stretched to Cover Child Support Obligations

By Janet Langjahr

Child support is typically paid from the noncustodial parent’s salary.

In Asheville, North Carolina, that is no longer as true as it used to be.

Increasingly, child support is being funded by the noncustodial parent’s … unemployment benefits.

A noncustodial parent is three times as likely to pay support from unemployment benefits today than he or she was a year ago.

The amount of support funded by unemployment benefits across the state has grown from $2.4 million to $8.6 million over the last year.

Because unemployment benefits are generally lower than salary and, in North Carolina, garnishment of unemployment benefits is legally capped at twenty-five percent of the amount of benefits, the amount of child support received by custodial parents is down.

Many other communities across the country are likely seeing increasing amounts of child support obligations funded by unemployment benefits and severance packages.

Read more in this Asheville [NC] Citizen-Times article: Unemployment garnisheed for child support.

Full post as published by Florida Divorce - Child Custody - Domestic Abuse Law on June 03, 2009 (boomark / email).