Do I have to pay child support if I'm unemployed?

What if you are unemployed? Do you still have to pay child support?  The general answer is, yes.  You will still be responsible for paying child support even if you are unemployed.  Generally, a court will assume that every person could work 40 hours a week at minimum wage.  The court will also look at a parent's earning potential, and will ultimately impute income.

The following is a discussion of a case that addresses an issue like this.

Husband and wife married in 1994, and had one child together.  They ran a logging company together during their marriage.  The couple separated in 2004, and wife moved with the minor child to Polson, 40 miles away from where the couple had been living.  The wife then filed for divorce.

The wife gave the District Court her child support calculations.  Wife stated that husband earned around $23,000 each year from logging, which was correct.

By the time of the trial, the wife was only working part-time.  Wife testified at trial that she could increase her employment to full-time and earn at least minimum wage.

The District Court accepted the wife's Child Support calculations.

The husband appealed to the Supreme Court of Montana on a couple of issues other than the child support, but I am only discussing the child support aspect here.

Here is important law regarding child support:  Income for child support may include imputed income in order to reflect fairly a parent's resources available for child support. See Rule 37.62.106, ARM. The District Court should impute income when a parent is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed. Rule 37.62.106(7), ARM; In re Marriage of Bee, 2002 MT 49, ¶ 22, 309 Mont. 34, ¶ 22, 43 P.3d 903, ¶ 22.

Therefore, income will be imputed if necessary when a person is voluntarily unemployed or underemployed.  The Supreme Court found that the District Court failed here to impute income to the wife/mother.  Since the District Court failed to account for the mother's voluntary underemployment when they considered the child support calculations, the Supreme Court remanded for further calculations.

See this case here: In re Marriage of Dennison , 2006 MT 56, 331 M 315, 132 P.3d 535 (2006).
Nowadays, imputing income may be more difficult than in prior years.  The economy is not at its best right now, and employment may be harder to obtain than before.  It will depend on whether a person voluntarily quit their job, and the specific facts of the case.