Yeah, but if one is working 40 hours a week and at least minimum wage, could they really do anything?
I don't think judge would be able to order someone like that to pay $5000 a week since that would be impossible on that wage.
If you're working 40 hours a week at minimum wage I don't see how the judge could honestly do anything about it without it being easily overruled on appeal.
Preface: different area of law, so it's at most a potential analogy, not a descriptor of probation expectations: In some places (mn being one of them), when it comes time to determine parental income for purposes of determining base child support, there is an analysis of what each earns, and (at least the possibility of) an imputed value for a parent's earnings. If you've not worked before or had always had min wage jobs, the Court is likely to impute to you the minimum wage for 30 hours/ week - so not a lot but not zero. But let's say you had been a doctor making $500k, married to someone who had never worked after your marriage 8 or 12 years ago - but when divorce loomed, you quit. And you're not the person who will be with the kids most of the time - or even half-time, so ordinarily you'd be paying the max child support (a paltry $17xx/ mo/ child, last time I checked in this thread about a year ago).
If you and stb ex can't be normal humans and come up with a reasonable agreed amount, the Court may well impute to you an earning capacity and determine child support due with reference to what you had been making (assuming you're not completely unemployable for some reason). They may give you time to ramp up to some portion of what you had previously been making, but that imputed amount isn't going to be that min wage x 30 hours amount, so you may well be ordered to pay based on the assessment of what you can reasonably be expected to earn.
There's a lot of wiggle room there, and it's not actually particularly strict in enforcement, but in theory, you're not supposed to be able to make strategic decisions to gyp your kids out of what their higher-earning parent could afford absent being a twit.
This carries out to alimony: it changes based on length of marriage, but the most typical alimony - if any - in MN is transitional alimony - a year or couple for the non-paying ex-spouse to go get some qualification or some kind of job, after which point there is no more alimony.
It's more art/ subjective than science, due to the many variables (are the kids 2 or 16? Are they healthy or do they require extra care? What are the relative potential earnings of each spouse? What are their educations? Work experiences?. Are they both young (40 isn't 50 or 60)/ healthy/ able? ...and on.). But though mn courts can be somewhat averse to throwing moneyed white people in prison, (except for egregious white collar crimes, which, if offensive enough,
they will do (
more, if you're curious, and yes, he taught at William Mitchell, lol, though he was put away before Nick enrolled there)), they do tend to have at least a semi-egalitarian view of men & women and shared parental responsibilities, including financial responsibilities, on the whole.
Tl; dr: there are situations in which you will be told to stop being a dick or a lazy fuck and to go get the kind of job your education and experience would suggest you can get.
Which, in Nick's case, appears to be about $100/ day - so thank God for that free money pouring in.
