Calculating child support

[DianeP]

I'm trying to help my friends out with doing some research on this subject. Our friend D has two children that live in Florida with their mother. He pays $1100 a month in child support. Well, he was recently laid off from his job and they went to court to get a modification of support. He was ordered to keep paying the same amount of child support despite his inability to pay that much at this time.

A couple facts. The mother and her husband make over $9000 a month and D never sees his children. I have been reading that support is based on income of both parents. Well if the father's income is severly cut because of losing their job, how can the court still make him pay the same amount. My friends are considering selling their house and filing bankruptcy.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Presumably the court is imputing income to him based upon his apparent earning capacity. That could happen for a number of reasons, even following a layoff.