Child Support and Stay at Home Parents

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Summary:

Summary of Child Support Bill

Currently, if a parent of a child under the age of six stays at home with the child or works only part-time in order to be at home more with the child gets divorced or is the subject of a petition for parentage (basically a child support action for un-married couples) and chooses to stay at home or stay part-time, under the child support guidelines, the parent is treated an “unemployed” or “underemployed” spouse and extra income is “imputed” to that spouse, reducing child support and effectively forcing that parent back into the workforce or into the workforce part-time.  This is so even though, while married, the couple must have deemed unemployment or part-time employment of sufficient value to the child’s welfare to sacrifice the extra income.

This bill would amend the law to provide that if a parent of a child under the age of 6 has been unemployed or employed only part-time in order to care for the child for the four months preceding filing of the divorce or the petition, then that parent will not have income “imputed” to him or her.  Further, if at the time of the filing of the divorce or the petition, a woman is pregnant, then she will have the option to stay at home or work at some level of employment until the child reaches the age of 6 without income (or extra income, if employed less than full-time) being imputed to her.  In both cases, however, if the parent/mother was working part-time or the pregnant woman chooses to work part-time, the income actually being earned part-time will be considered in determining child support.

This bill does a couple of things:

• It allows a decision that a couple has already made to have a parent at home with the child to continue in the best interest of the child without reducing child support and forcing the parent/mother into full-time employment.

• It does NOT allow a parent who has already had a child and who is working to decide, after the divorce or petition for child support is filed, to then quit work or reduce the hours of work in order to stay home .

• It does not apply if the parent of a child was unemployed or employed part-time for reasons other than the care of the child. Simply having been laid-off for work for the last 6 months will not, in itself, bring the new law into play.

Language of Bill:

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 36,
Chapter 5, relative to child support.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:
SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Section 36-5-101(e), is amended by inserting
the following as a new, appropriately designated subdivision thereto:
(5) If a parent has been in the past, or is currently, partially or completely
unemployed in order to care for a child who is six (6) years of age or younger, or a child
who is not yet enrolled in the first grade, then a calculation of income under the child
support guidelines shall not include a determination that such parent is a willfully or
voluntarily unemployed or underemployed parent. In determining the income of that
parent, such parent shall not be attributed any income other than income that the parent
actually earned during the time period that is being considered by the court in
determining the income of each parent.
SECTION 2. This act shall take effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring
it.