Child Support

Who Has to Pay Child Support? 

In North Carolina, the legal parents are almost always on the hook for child support. Very rarely is someone else, like a step-parent, held responsible for child support instead of the biological or adoptive parent. During separation, if you are unmarried, or if the other parent is estranged, you may be eligible for child support.

What is Child Support Used For?

The idea behind child support is to provide reasonable living expenses for the needs of the child. Child support is not to provide living expenses for the caretaker spouse. In the state of North Carolina, the average child support received in 2024 was $9,167 per year making it the fourth highest child support state in the country according to World Population Review. The needs of the child and the economic status of each obligated person differ in each case. The Child Support Guidelines govern the calculation and amount of child support but they are still open to argument and intrinsic differences in families. Infant care and child care for single parents has risen to a level that is almost unfathomable at 38.4% of a single person’s income in North Carolina. The Guidelines have a schedule of “basic child support obligations,” which is based on economic data that compiled average family expenditures for minor children. On top of these “basic child support obligations,” specific categories like health insurance premiums, work-related childcare expenses, and what is called “other extraordinary expenses” are added to calculate the total child support obligation. While child support is calculated by accounting for such expenses and with the intent of covering such expenses, at the end of the day, child support is just a lump sum of money paid by the noncustodial parent every month to be used at the discretion of the custodial parent. Despite the child support worksheets and calculators, the hard truth is that the estimates for two married employed people to raise a child in North Carolina is estimated at $21,000 a year.

What is the Average Amount of Child Support for One Child?

In North Carolina, child support is calculated based on the parents’ relative incomes. Problems and issues arise when parents are self-employed and self reporting, when they are on commission based jobs, or if they are unemployed or underemployed. The goal of the Guidelines is to provide the child the same proportion of income from each parent they would get if they all lived together but obviously in a separation or period when the parents aren’t living together with the children, they make different life choices, support other adults outside of their biological children, choose different jobs, and otherwise obfuscate, at times, the responsibility of paying their share of support. Because child support is so dependent on each parent’s income and hard data that is available at the time of the child support hearing, i.e., it could be seen as unreasonably low as $100 per child or as high as $3,000 per child (or even more if is beyond the guidelines), it is not practical nor helpful to determine an “average” amount of child support because it is so fact dependent and time sensitive.

How Do You Calculate Child Support?

The Guidelines have worksheets that will assist in calculating your child support for you. The first step is to determine which worksheet to use, which depends on the separation agreement and custodial arrangement. For example, if the child lives with one parent more than 243 nights out of the year, you are on Worksheet A. If the child lives with each parent at least 123 nights out of the year, you use Worksheet B.   (There is also a less commonly used Worksheet C in split custody cases). The guidelines are merely that – guidelines. They don’t account for the many, many circumstances that face parents who are actually involved in a child support situation. For that, you should have highly skilled counsel who can assist you in factoring in all of the unique situations that you may be encountering.