How do you pay child support with no income?

Answer 1

You don't, but the court might require you to conduct a supervised job search.

This is becoming a rapidly growing problem with so many people being unemployed. In California, a sole or primary custody parent can be ordered to pay child support to the non-working parent.

The primary thing is to keep the court apprised of the situation. A child support modification can be filed with an attorney, though attorneys don't tell unemployed parents that.

In most states, if one of the parents has moved in with someone else, the other person's income cannot be used to support the child. (Community property states are different, I'll talk about that shortly). However, the parent is considered to have "in kind" income if someone else (boyfriend, girlfriend, parents, etc.) pays the rent. So if the rent would normally be 1200 in an area and someone else is picking up the tab for the parents' 600, that 600 can be counted as income. The same thing goes for car payments someone else pays, etc. The idea is that if your mom or girlfriend or boyfriend can support you, they could be helping support your child.

In community property state, the rules are different, because half of the married person's spouse's income belongs to them. In other words if person A marries person B (who has a salary of 40,000) then half of person B's salary is community property. In general, half of THAT can go for child support. The reason only half can has to do with the Fair Debt Collection Act.

Answer 2

well when the parent responsible for the child support has "no income" he should notify the child support court of his situation, they may modify the monthly payment assuming the parent can pay at least $50-60 per week or $200-240 monthly. if after this modification the parent still cant pay, the court may order the grandparents to pay the child support until the parent can pay.