It is well accepted even within the Arizona Judiciary that it is next to impossible for the incomes that the parties shared when they were together to support two households in the aftermath when the parties are living apart. Still, Every 4 years, the Arizona State Supreme Court reviews Arizona’s Child Support Guidelines and updates those guidelines based on data from the Country’s largest consulting agency that specializes in Child Support Guidelines related development, updates, economic analysis, and Child Support Collections. Policy Studies, Inc. has as it’s best interest the steady increase of the percent of income that obligors pay to obligees. This is not a gender-biased position, strictly speaking, however, the fact remains that in the vast majority of cases, Fathers are the payors of child support leaving mothers as the recipients. Some years the guideline support amounts move upward as little as 3 or 4 percent. In other cases, such as in 2011, the support obligations of fathers increased across the board by more than 10%. Let’s take the example of a father with a child support order for his 2-year-old daughter calculated per the guidelines at $500/month in 2010.
In 2011, the calculation would result in a guidelines-based award of $550/month assuming that all other factors used in the guidelines remained the same. Assuming that the average increase relating to the guidelines updates in 2015 is 5%, the new guideline amount for our example payor is now $577.50/month, Now, let’s continue to trace the changes to the guidelines as follows:
2019: +10% increase in CS = $635.25
2023: + 7% increase in CS = $679.72
For a total of a 36% increase in child support over just 14 years. Let’s say, for instance that your child is 2 years old in 2010 when this all starts and assuming that your income does not increase measurably over 13 years. Given the 10% adjustment that is built into the guidelines for a child over 12 years of age, In 2024, the guideline calculations would place your calculated support amount at $747.69/month! You realistically could be paying $247.69/month more (an increase of nearly 50%) or nearly $3000 per year each and every year thereafter. Let’s say that you were barely getting by in 2011 at only $500/month, how much worse of would you be at $747.69/month? Your contributions TODAY will help AZFR to monitor the Arizona State Court and make sure that they don’t bump your support by 75%, double it, or more. Any amount helps. Thank you for your support!