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A divorce will cause change to every aspect of your life and serious consideration should be given how a divorce will affect you before filing for divorce or separation.  If you have children, then often most of your primary concerns will revolve around the children and issues such as custody, parenting time and child support.  If you or your spouse are the parent that earns less income or is the primary care provider for the children and does not work outside of the home, then alimony and child support should be a primary concern.  This blog is written to broadly address the issue of whether child care expenses will be included in child support if one of the parents does not work.  If you are considering a divorce or facing a potential divorce, please do not hesitate to contact us to schedule a consultation by clicking on this link or calling (248) 608-4123.

Are Day Care Expenses Included in Child Support If One Of the Parents Does Not Work Outside Of The Home?

First, day care expenses are typically included in child support where required during a parent's working hours when they have parenting time with the child or children (please see my previous blog, Are Day Car Expenses Included In Child Support In Michigan? for further explanation of that topic).  The topic of this blog requires an explanation of how two principles regarding establishing income for the purposes of child support and alimony in Michigan interact with each other.  

The first topic is referred to as "imputation of income".  Typically, when calculating child support, if parent A has not been working full-time then parent B will claim that once they are divorced or separated, then parent A either should or will have to work "full-time" after the finalization of the divorce.  Parent B will claim that parent A has an unexercised ability to earn an income working full-time and that a full-time income should be "imputed" to parent A.  In many cases, some income will be imputed to parent A.  In these cases, the amount of imputed income will depend on a variety of factors including but not limited to: how long parent A has been out of the workforce, parent A's education or other employment skill level, what would be a full-time income or salary commensurate with parent A's education, experience and skill set in the local area, parent A's health and a variety of other factors.

Once there is either an agreement as to what parent A's imputed income should be or the judge rules what parent A's income should be for calculating support, then it begs the second question: whether day care will be required if parent A has to now work full-time and if so, should that be taken into account and included in the formula.  The Michigan Child Support Formula Guideline Manual for 2025 indicates that day care expenses "may" be considered in instances where income is imputed to one parent.  What this means, is that if you are not working full-time because you have been staying home as the primary care provider for the children and they are under the age of thirteen, you should strongly argue that day care expenses should be included in the child support calculation so that the other parent will be responsible for some percent (often more than 50%) of the dare care expenses, which will effectively increase your child support.  Alternatively, if you are on the other side of this issue, you will want to argue that until the day care is actually being used, such an expense should not be included in the child support itself but shared only once the day care is actually obtained, used and paid.

This blog was written to broadly address this very complicated issue, if you have particular questions regarding your own concerns, please contact us by clicking on this link or calling us at (248) 608-4123 to schedule a consultation.