The New Jersey child support guidelines are the same regardless of how old the child is despite the fact that it is more expensive to raise a teenager than it is to raise a younger child. If the custodial parent is receiving child support when the child is at an early age, the child support aware will average itself out over the course of time. That is, the child support received for the younger child is too much while the child support for the teenager is too little.

Teenager Child Support NJ

For custodial parents that did not go to court until the child was a teenager, they do not get the benefit of this averaging. Thus, there is a 14.6% increase in child support when calculating initial child support awards for teenagers. Our New Jersey child support lawyers have found that this is often over looked by many other lawyers and even some judges. As a result, if you are receiving child support, you are losing out on a lot of money if the teenager adjustment was not factored in to your case.