How exactly does alimony and child support work, and why does it seem like it’s always men who pay it to women, and never the other way around?
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I see a lot of people answering the second question, but not the first. Could be because “how does it work?” can mean a ton of different things:
Why does it exist? – this is answered by other responses so I will just refer to other responses
How is it legally setup? – this varies state by state and sometimes county by county. Each state will have different laws and standards around child support and some states have spousal support, some do not. This is all determined by that state and locally different county judges actually make the rulings.
How does it get setup in the first place? – Assuming one party wants to receive payments and the other party either doesn’t want to pay or doesn’t want as much as being asked, then one side or the other will petition a family court to setup child or spousal support, or both. In family court, because one party is petitioning the court for something and the other is responding, they are called the Petitioner and Respondent respectively. When the Petitioner petitions the court, typically a hearing will be setup, though the court will probably order mediation to take place first. If an agreement is reached, or if there was no argument in the first place, a “no contest” order can be drawn up and signed off by both sides and the judge making it official. If the two sides don’t agree, they will go to court. Family court hearings are similar to other court hearings in that both sides can have witnesses testify and each party can testify themselves. Evidence will be collected, typically things like W-2’s, paystubs, tax returns, bank records, etc. After hearing all of this, the judge will ultimately rule on the Petitioner’s claim, and decide if child support and/or spousal support is warranted and if so, how much.
How is it actually paid? – this varies by state as well, but this will usually go through the AG’s office for that state, and once an order is signed off by a judge and processed, one side will make payments to the AG’s office, either manually, through automatic payments, or from their paycheck directly, and the other side will have an account that receives money which can again be setup to transfer funds to a bank account.
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