Federal Minimum Wage Increase & Your Child Support

Many of you know that the child support laws in Minnesota were changed several years ago to take into consideration both parties’ income.  What few people may appreciate is the fact that Minnesota Statute Chapter 518A has specific treatment for unemployed & underemployed individuals. The current law states that for people who have no readily identified income, for which it cannot be argued otherwise, shall be imputed to have income equal to 150% of the State’s minimum wage (a dollar more than the federal minimum wage). With the rise in federal minimum wage that went into effect July 25, 2009 (it went up $0.70 per hour), it will trickle down to the figures that we use to impute income for unemployed parents, underemployed parents, and parents whose income cannot be easily ascertained otherwise. If you think this change is going to affect your child support, either on the defense or raising the amount of child support you should be receiving, please give us a call to talk about it.