New child support guidelines in effect Jan. 1

New child support guidelines, effective Jan. 1, 2023, will improve parity between parents and make it easier for them to support their families.

While the updated guidelines will affect everyone who gets or modifies a court order for child support, the changes will likely have the most impact on families with lower incomes and families that include either parent’s child but not a child both parents had together.

The 2021 legislation to change the guidelines was based on recommendations from the Minnesota Child Support Task Force to remedy known issues and increase fairness to parents, resulting in child support orders more tailored for individual situations.

“These new child support guidelines better reflect the current costs to raise children and will result in child support orders that are more consistent for similarly-situated families,” said Assistant Commissioner Tikki Brown, Minnesota Department of Human Services. “More than two years of dedicated work by the parents, legislators and child support professionals serving on the task force made this happen.”

The new guidelines:

• Use a basic support table to incorporate more up-to-date economic data on the costs of raising a child. The most recent guidelines were based on economic data from 20 years ago;

• Provide new minimum basic support amounts, starting at $50 for one child with incremental increases of $10 per additional child;

• Incorporate a low-income adjustment for parents with combined incomes of $6,000 or less per month. This helps parents who make too much to pay minimum child support but have had child support orders that withhold a percentage of their income they can’t afford;

• Extend the cap on parents’ combined incomes to $20,000 per month;

• Assure that in families that include either parent’s child but not a child both parents had together, the children are counted fairly for the purposes of income deductions;

• Include deductions for children in these families when parents are legally responsible but do not have a child support order.

Courts order child support amounts, which generally include payment for expenses relating to a child's care, housing, food, clothing and transportation, along with additional support for medical and child care costs. Courts use the guidelines to set a child support amount by considering the incomes of both parents and the number of children.

County and state child support offices provide services for more than 314,300 parents and more than 220,300 children. In 2021, the child support program collected and disbursed more than $550 million in child support.