The Utah legislature has designed and issued a significant change in the Utah Child Support Minimum Guidelines. In many states, the state legislature institutes a minimum amount of child support that should exchange hands for the care of a child. States vary as to how that calculation is done.

In Utah, the method used is to:
1. Determine the monthly income of each parent,
2. Combine that income to find a total monthly joint income,
3. Compare that joint monthly income to a square on a grid of joint income and number of children. The grid will provide a combined child support amount. That combined income amount is supposedly what it takes to raise that number of children using that family’s combined income.
4. Calculate each parent’s percentage portion of the total monthly joint amount is calculated.
5. Multiply that parent’s percentage portion of the joint income amount by the combined child support amount as found on the grid.

(more…)