unemployment ends soon, what do I do?

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

My husband is in a carpenter's union. He has literally not had any work in 2 years even though he has been on the books. We have been paying the amount that we are supposed to pay for his son's support all this time even though it is over 1/3 of his unemployment. We thought about trying to get it lowered, but the judge we had last time was very mean and told my husband that if he ever saw my husband's face in court again that he'd nail him to the wall. It didn't matter to the judge if my husband, myself or our 2 children lived in poverty. So my husband has been to afraid to go to get it lowered or to ask for visitation rights because the mother isn't letting my husband see his son.

We recently found out that the judge that threatened my husband is no longer a judge. I heard that he left unwillingly. So now we are wondering what might happen if we went back to court. I don't know if our situation matter's right now, but I'll tell it in case it does.

My husband was laid off about 2 years ago. He has stayed on the books right along, with the exception of a time or two that he didn't make it back into the office to resign. Shorty after my husband was laid off, I got hurt at work and was unable to preform my job as a dog groomer any more. Due to some screwy NY law, I didn't get anything from my old job accept having my medical bills paid and $925. I was unable to find a job because I've been a groomer my entire adult life, so I have no other applicable skills. My husband isn't supposed to look for work, because the union does it for him. Plus being in a union you are only supposed to work union jobs.

My husband and I both decided to go back to college. We have been living off of our grants and loans and his unemployment. It's been tough but doable. If the union called my husband today and offered my husband work, he'd go, but they haven't.

In a few weeks, my husband's unemployment will be all used up. So the only thing we will have to live off off will be grants and loans. We will not be able to afford to keep paying our support at it's current rate. The boys mother doesn't really need it that much anyway. She is living with a guy that pays all of her bills. Our support payments and her income is completely disposable to her. (which ticks me off, because we really need the money and she wastes it, but that's her right I guess.)

We would like to go to court to have it lowered and we'd also like to ask for visitation as well. So basically, what can we expect if we ask for lowered support? Will they consider a percentage of his student grants and/or loans? Will they tell him to bugger off? I just don't know what to expect. Currently my husband is paying $89.20. I know that it isn't much to some people, but when your income is $290 weekly, it's a lot and when your income is $0, it's exorbitant. I think though that only $45 is actually support and the rest is supposed to pay for child care or something like that. The boy doesn't ever go to a baby sitter's and if/when he does... the mother doesn't pay for it.

Any help would be great. Sorry for rambling.

jchristine23 said:

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

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For starters, it's not your issue - and if you continue to meddle, it could make it difficult for your husband to get visitation rights. Seriously, he needs to get off his butt and come here and sign up for his own account. If he's unwilling to make even that marginal effort, it's unlikely that he'll follow through with any of the advice that is provided.

jchristine23 said:

My husband is in a carpenter's union. He has literally not had any work in 2 years even though he has been on the books. We have been paying the amount that we are supposed to pay for his son's support all this time even though it is over 1/3 of his unemployment. We thought about trying to get it lowered, but the judge we had last time was very mean and told my husband that if he ever saw my husband's face in court again that he'd nail him to the wall. It didn't matter to the judge if my husband, myself or our 2 children lived in poverty. So my husband has been to afraid to go to get it lowered or to ask for visitation rights because the mother isn't letting my husband see his son.

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Visitation and child support are entirely unrelated. If Dad wants to see his son, he needs to file for a court-ordered visitation schedule. It's not hard. If he already has a court-ordered schedule and Mom will not let him see the kid, then he should file for contempt. That's even easier.

jchristine23 said:

We recently found out that the judge that threatened my husband is no longer a judge. I heard that he left unwillingly. So now we are wondering what might happen if we went back to court. I don't know if our situation matter's right now, but I'll tell it in case it does.

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It really doesn't matter. The judge didn't like your husband for some reason. Most judges have got better things to do than to randomly attack litigants. What did your husband do to tick him off?

jchristine23 said:

My husband was laid off about 2 years ago. He has stayed on the books right along, with the exception of a time or two that he didn't make it back into the office to resign. Shorty after my husband was laid off, I got hurt at work and was unable to preform my job as a dog groomer any more. Due to some screwy NY law, I didn't get anything from my old job accept having my medical bills paid and $925. I was unable to find a job because I've been a groomer my entire adult life, so I have no other applicable skills. My husband isn't supposed to look for work, because the union does it for him. Plus being in a union you are only supposed to work union jobs.

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Then your husband is voluntarily unemployed. He needs to be looking for a job. Since he hasn't, he can be imputed an income - and forced to pay child support on that basis.

jchristine23 said:

My husband and I both decided to go back to college. We have been living off of our grants and loans and his unemployment. It's been tough but doable. If the union called my husband today and offered my husband work, he'd go, but they haven't.

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Again, both of you are voluntarily unemployed. Your unemployment doesn't matter - you are not responsible to support the kid. But your husband is required to do so- and chose to go to college instead of getting a job. His choice. (And I don't give a hoot about the union not liking it. They don't own him. He has to decide whether his role is to support his family or make some union boss happy).

jchristine23 said:

In a few weeks, my husband's unemployment will be all used up. So the only thing we will have to live off off will be grants and loans. We will not be able to afford to keep paying our support at it's current rate. The boys mother doesn't really need it that much anyway. She is living with a guy that pays all of her bills. Our support payments and her income is completely disposable to her. (which ticks me off, because we really need the money and she wastes it, but that's her right I guess.)

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It doesn't matter if Mom needs the money. By law and by rights, Dad needs to be supporting the kid.

jchristine23 said:

We would like to go to court to have it lowered and we'd also like to ask for visitation as well. So basically, what can we expect if we ask for lowered support? Will they consider a percentage of his student grants and/or loans? Will they tell him to bugger off? I just don't know what to expect. Currently my husband is paying $89.20. I know that it isn't much to some people, but when your income is $290 weekly, it's a lot and when your income is $0, it's exorbitant. I think though that only $45 is actually support and the rest is supposed to pay for child care or something like that. The boy doesn't ever go to a baby sitter's and if/when he does... the mother doesn't pay for it.

Any help would be great. Sorry for rambling.

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Dad is pretty much out of luck. Since Dad is voluntarily unemployed, the court can impute an income - which will be at least minimum wage - which happens to be pretty close to his current income. So even if he asks for a modification, the new number will be within a few dollars of the current number.

He needs a job.

While it doesn't affect his child support, you need a job, too. Your family is living in poverty and you're not doing anything about it. Plenty of people work and go to school at the same time and you could be, too. The fact that your career is no longer available to you (even if true) is irrelevant. McDonald's is usually hiring. Walmart is usually hiring. There are plenty of jobs that someone with no experience can get. So instead of complaining about your husband having to pay child support, get a job and do your share to support your family.

And tell him to get his butt in gear and find a job - because his child support obligation will continue (which is only fair because his kid needs to eat, too).

It will be extremely hard for this person (union carpenter husband) to get a job at McDonald's or Wal-mart. These jobs are not just lying around waiting for any warm body. There are warm bodies out there who are not greatly overqualified. They very likely wouldn't touch someone who's a professional, or whose last job paid $xxxx high dollars per hour and who would be gone like he was shot out of a gun if the union called him to work again. In the eyes of their hiring people, it's really a waste of time for them to hire this person and train them, and they probably would make a lousy employee anyhow, since they will have so many expectations about how jobs are supposed to be and how they should be treated that do not happen at the low end.

But even though it will be well nigh impossible for him to get hired at one of these jobs, that certainly doesn't mean the judge will not demand that he begin making a vigorous job search for one of them, else he is looking at spending some quality time in jail for non-payment.

He can certainly go back to court and try to get the support lowered, but based on what you are telling us here, yeah, he's really going to irritate the support court judge. In other words, I can't work because my union won't let me. I can't make any money to pay this child support because I can't get exactly the kind of work I had two years ago, at that wage. I have been living off my unemployment (and all those extensions)for two years which has now run out. I am going back to college (Yeah, sure, what does he think he is going to major in that will get him a job equivalent to what he's had as a union carpenter, pay wise? ) All they will do is impute him an amount and pound him to come up with it.

Visitation is a separate issue from child support.

If your dear husband has court ordered visitation, then he should try to exercise it.

There's no hurt in trying to have CS amount lowered .

Often Judges tell a party or both parties he/she doesn't want to see them in front of him/her again .

Non the less the parties have a right to petition the court as long as the petitions are not frivolous .

There's a possibility of having it temporally lowered under the NY State CS Standards Act .

He can petition for visitations . If he can not afford a lawyer one may be appointed if he qualifies under the poverty guidelines .

He can ask at the first hearing .

He would need one for visitation hearings .

Others have said that CS and visitation issues are separate which is usually true , but in NY once there is a visitation order and the NCP is continually being denied visitation after filing contempts with the court , following the courts visitation orders and still being denied and after numerous efforts to enforce his/her rights , and is still denied ,he can request suspension of CS obligations during the denial period and/or termination under NYS Law.

husband needs to consider being a travelling carpenter. He can check with his local hall to see if there is any work available at other locals in the country.

If he doesn't want to do that, he needs to either find a job in a different skill set or consider dropping out of the union (although I am not big on that idea since there are problems with doing this) and work as a non-union carpenter. You can't just sit and wait forever for work to show up.

commentator said:

It will be extremely hard for this person (union carpenter husband) to get a job at McDonald's or Wal-mart. These jobs are not just lying around waiting for any warm body. There are warm bodies out there who are not greatly overqualified. They very likely wouldn't touch someone who's a professional, or whose last job paid $xxxx high dollars per hour and who would be gone like he was shot out of a gun if the union called him to work again. In the eyes of their hiring people, it's really a waste of time for them to hire this person and train them, and they probably would make a lousy employee anyhow, since they will have so many expectations about how jobs are supposed to be and how they should be treated that do not happen at the low end.

But even though it will be well nigh impossible for him to get hired at one of these jobs, that certainly doesn't mean the judge will not demand that he begin making a vigorous job search for one of them, else he is looking at spending some quality time in jail for non-payment.

He can certainly go back to court and try to get the support lowered, but based on what you are telling us here, yeah, he's really going to irritate the support court judge. In other words, I can't work because my union won't let me. I can't make any money to pay this child support because I can't get exactly the kind of work I had two years ago, at that wage. I have been living off my unemployment (and all those extensions)for two years which has now run out. I am going back to college (Yeah, sure, what does he think he is going to major in that will get him a job equivalent to what he's had as a union carpenter, pay wise? ) All they will do is impute him an amount and pound him to come up with it.

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It really doesn't matter. It is quite likely that he will be imputed at least minimum wage - which is close to what he's making on unemployment.

Whether he wants to work at McDonald's or find a different line of work is up to him.

BL said:

There's no hurt in trying to have CS amount lowered .

Often Judges tell a party or both parties he/she doesn't want to see them in front of him/her again .

Non the less the parties have a right to petition the court as long as the petitions are not frivolous .

There's a possibility of having it temporally lowered under the NY State CS Standards Act .

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Yes, but if Mom asks, the court will probably impute minimum wage - which would not result in much (if any) reduction.

BL said:

He can petition for visitations . If he can not afford a lawyer one may be appointed if he qualifies under the poverty guidelines .

He can ask at the first hearing .

He would need one for visitation hearings .

Others have said that CS and visitation issues are separate which is usually true , but in NY once there is a visitation order and the NCP is continually being denied visitation after filing contempts with the court , following the courts visitation orders and still being denied and after numerous efforts to enforce his/her rights , and is still denied ,he can request suspension of CS obligations during the denial period and/or termination under NYS Law.

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That's a good point. It probably won't help this guy because meddling stepmom says that he hasn't even tried to get visitation rights. As suggested earlier, his firs step is to file for visitation.

Thank you all very much for the info. I will talk to my husband about what you all have said.

That being said... I would like to add a few points. My husband has been looking for work even though he is not supposed too. He has been looking for a new job since before he even got laid off. He injured his back a while ago. He missed work sometimes because his back would get so bad that he could barely move it. He kept working as much as he could but he was not or is not capable of being a carpentr anymore.

I have also been looking for work. There are not any jobs available where I live. The only thing that either of us was able to find was a job at the mall. You could only work in four hour shifts three times a week and it was a fourty min drive away. By the time I paid for gas and child care we would have lost money.

College was really the only option for us. Even when there is carpenter work available it is usually mostly seasonal. Most of the union carpenters are laid off for multiple weeks each year. Plus contractors do not like paying journeyman rates. They always hire apprentices first. Which means my husband is always on the bottom of the list for work. My husband and I will never have anything more than just enough to scrape by if we do not do something to improve our selves. We feel that a couple years of hard times is worth it if we can set ourselves up to be able to provide more for all of the children in our
lives.

I am sorry if you do not agree with our decision to go back to school. To us it seemed like the only option we had. It was either live in poverty for two years or live at the brink of poverty for the rest of our lives. Besides... if we had not gone back to school where would we be when unemployment ran out? We do not get tons of money in grants and loans but it is better than nothing and it is certainly better than sitting on our butts and waiting for the state to pay our bills.

I am also sorry if you find me to be meddling. I do not feel like I am meddling. My husbands problems are my problems. They have a huge impact on myself and my children. How can it be meddling for me to look out for my own affairs? My husband asked me to see what I could find out. He does not really care for forums because he has had a few experiences where people got really judgemental. He also tends to get confused about legal things. Dealing with stuff like this is just my niche in our family since I am better at it.

So thank you for your advice. I will try to see if I can find anything about legal help in our area in regards to these issues. I have heard that there is a group that gives legal advice for free for this kind of thing but they wont actually go to court with you. I guess they just tell you what yiu should do and say in court.

Thanks again.