An income shares formula is used by many states to establish the child support amount of each child rather than what it actually costs to raise a child. Income shares tables calculating child support are not based directly on actual spending on children but rather on indirect estimates of child costs. Income shares assumes that child costs reflect the spending necessary to restore a family's standard of living back to what it was before prior to the divorce or having a child. This technique was first developed in the 19th century to answer economic questions among different family types, but was never intended to measure the cost of rearing children.
Approximately half of all guidelines for child support in the United States are based on the income shares child support model. The income shares model for child support was developed by economist Dr. Robert G. Williams and was based on the work of Thomas Espenshade. Espenshade analyzed the 1972–1973 Consumer Expenditure Survey to determine the costs of raising children in the United States. The number of states using the income shares model is decreasing.
Famous quotes containing the words income and/or shares:
“Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 3:13-18.
“The ideal of men and women sharing equally in parenting and working is a vision still. What would it be like if women and men were less different from each other, if our worlds were not so foreign? A male friend who shares daily parenting told me that he knows at his very core what his wife’s loving for their daughter feels like, and that this knowing creates a stronger bond between them.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 6 (1978)