In what ways might a part-time job or second job affect alimony or child support payments?
Change in circumstances:
Under Massachusetts divorce law, a spousal support award is not set in stone. Rather, one may alter it by a petition for modification to the court initiated by either party. To prevail, the petitioner must demonstrate that an adjustment of the alimony judgment is warranted because of a material change of circumstances since the earlier judgment was entered.
Likewise, a court may modify an earlier judgment regarding the care and custody of minor children if it determines a material and substantial change in the parties’ circumstances has occurred requiring an adjustment that would be in the children’s best interests. As noted in Section III. (A.) of the 2017 Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines, among the occurrences that justify modifying a child support order are:
- An inconsistency between the amount of the existing order and the amount that would result from the application of the guidelines;
- previously ordered health care coverage is no longer available;
- previously ordered health care coverage is still available but no longer at a reasonable cost or without an undue hardship; and
- access to health care coverage not previously available to a parent has become available.
Concerning both alimony and child support, there is a common basis for complaints for modification. It involves one party taking a second job to supplement the main income or accepting a part-time position.
Factors:
In ordering one of the parties in a divorce to pay alimony to the other in the first instance, the court weighs numerous factors, including the length of the marriage, the parties’ age and health, their employability and the sources and amounts of income. How can a judge arrive at the parties’ incomes concerning an alimony award? He or she may attribute income to an unemployed or underemployed party.
In a spousal support modification action, any income earned by the party paying alimony from a part-time job, second job or through overtime is presumed not to be material to a redetermination of alimony, so long as the party is working more than a “single full-time equivalent position,” and the second job or overtime pay began after the initial spousal support award was entered.
Example:
In one case, the former wife appealed her court-ordered rehabilitative alimony payments to her ex-husband. The Appeals Court found the probate court judge had not abused his discretion in making the award. It had, however, erred in determining her ability to pay the amount of spousal support; it considered her income both from her full-time position and a part-time job. She took on the part-time job only after the judgment of divorce had entered. The appellate court vacated the alimony award and remanded the case to the trial judge. The court held that it cannot consider a party working full-time “underemployed” based on the pay level from a post-judgment second job unless a judge finds supporting evidence that “a basis exists for rebutting the presumption of immateriality applicable to the income earned from the second job.”
The 2017 Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines allow a court considering the best interests of the children to weigh “none, some, or all overtime income or income from a secondary job” from the calculation of gross income for child support purposes. A presumption exists that any part-time job, overtime pay or second-job income is not a consideration in a future child support order if the payor or recipient parent began receiving such income after the judge entered the initial child support order.
Contact us:
Are you looking for an experienced Newburyport or Andover divorce lawyer or family law attorney? If you have any questions about alimony, child support, or any other issues regarding family law, please contact our firm. You may schedule a free consultation with an experienced family law attorney today. Call our offices at 978-225-9030 during business hours or complete a contact form online.