$126 a week for three children not much child support

The Herald reports:

A Ngaruawahia couple with a three-month-old baby face losing their house because the dad has been hit with an increase in child support payments of $44 a week.

Daniel Moulden, 30, and his wife Paige, 20, bought their house for $280,000 four months ago, just before their baby son Eli was born in January.

They calculated that they could just meet the house payments of $420 a week out of their combined net income of $1068 a week after deducting $82.50 a week which Mr Moulden was paying in child support for his three other children aged 11, 9 and 4.

Then the child support formula changed. From April 1, Mr Moulden must now pay $126.30 a week.

“At the moment, we are pushing other bills away so that we can keep the house,” he said.

“But if you push a bill away, it just doubles the next week, so we are pretty much looking at we might have to give it up.”

I have sympathy for any family who has an unexpected increase in costs. An extra $44 a week can be a real challenge.

But I would make the point that if he is only paying $82.50 a week or even $126.30 a week as a contribution towards three of his children, that is not a huge proportion of what they would be costing their custodial parent.

Mr Moulden is one of 33,000 liable parents whose child support payments have gone up under the new formula. A further 46,000 will pay less and 58,000 are unaffected.

Any change always produces winners and losers.