Assignment of Child Support to Children

MonthlyCSIncomeOfChild and MonthlyCSInHhsWithoutKids are created as follows:

On a month-by-month basis, each adult's child support income is divided among his or her children as shown below, and the resulting value for each child is stored as MonthlyCSIncomeOfChild

1. If the adult with child support has custodial children, the child support income is divided equally among the custodial children. (Currently, the child support module only identifies custodial children who are living with their mothers).
2. If the adult with child support has no custodial children, the child support is divided equally among the parent's own children under age 21, including those who are subfamily heads or spouses.
3. If the adult with child support has no own children under age 21, the child support is divided equally among persons < 21 in the adult's subfamily.
4. If the adult with child support has no persons under age 21 in his or her subfamily, the child support is divided equally among persons < 21 in the adult's extended family (including related subfamilies).
5. If the adult with child support has no persons under age 21 in the adult's extended family (including related subfamilies) and there are unrelated individual children in the household, child support is divided equally among the unrelated individual children.
6. If the adult with child support has no persons under age 21 in the extended family, and there are no unrelated individual children in the household, child support is divided equally among persons < 21 in the household.
7. If none of the above conditions is met, then MonthlyCSInHhsWithoutKids is set equal to the adult's reported child support as allocated over the months of the year.

There are some exceptions to the assignment procedure outlined above.

Person reporting child support is aged 15-20 and has no custodial/own children:

If a person aged 15-20 who does not have custodial or own children reports child support, the child support model assumes that the child support is child support paid on behalf of the 15-20 year old by his or her absent parent. In this case, the 15-20 year old keeps the child support income. It is not assigned to anyone else.

Since the 15-20 year old is assumed to have already reported his or her own child support, the child is not assigned a share of the child support reported by adults in the household. However, if all of the children in the group of children being examined have reported their own child support, the adult's child support is divided equally among them, and the amount is added to the amount reported by each child.

Person reporting child support is aged 15-20 and has custodial or own children:

If a person aged 15-20 reports child support and has custodial children or own children, child support is allocated to his or her children as described under steps 1 and 2 above.

Since the child support module assumes the teen parent's reported child support was paid on behalf of his or her children, a corresponding assumption is made that if the teen's parent or other adult reports child support income, the teen parent is eligible for a share.

Person reporting child support is aged 21-23:

If a person aged 21-23 reports receiving child support, does not have own or custodial children, and is either a full-time student or has parents or siblings who report child support, the 21-23 year old is treated as reporting child support paid on his or her own behalf. In this case, the 21-23 year old keeps the child support income. It is not assigned to anyone else.

Person reporting child support is a man married to a custodial mother:

If a married man who reports child support is married to a custodial mother, the man's child support is not assigned to children identified as custodial children of the mother. Instead, it is divided equally among the couple's remaining children.

However, if all of the children are identified as custodial children of the mother, then the husband's child support is divided equally among the children.

More than one adult reports child support:

For each adult, child support is allocated to the children according to the rules above. If a child gets child support allocated from more than one adult, the amounts are added up in order to obtain the total amount of child support for the child.

Other restrictions applying to non-parents:

If an adult is not the parent of a child, and is less than 13 years older than the child, none of the adult's child support is allocated to that child.

If an adult is not the parent of the child, none of the adult's child support is allocated to the children of a married couple or to the children of a person of the same gender as the adult.