Wisconsin Family Impact Seminars 1 A Brief History and Description of the Wisconsin Percentage Standard for Child Support

hild support is the amount that a parent who does not live with a child should provide toward the child’s support. Although child support is easy to define, it has proven extraordinarily difficult to determine standard amounts that fairly balance the interests of the child, both parents, and the state. Wisconsin has been a pioneer in developing child support standards that influ-enced enormously federal legislation and now form the basis for the guidelines in many states. A history of the development of the standards may be useful as child support continues to be an issue of public debate and legislative scrutiny. Traditionally, child support amounts had been set on a case-by-case basis by a judge after both parents had the opportunity to present relevant evidence at a ju-dicial hearing. This approach was thought necessary to allow the trial judge to tailor the order to the needs of a particular family. Because no two family situa-tions were seen to be alike, flexibility was needed in the system; this enabled the judge to weigh the equities of each situation and arrive at the best solution for the family involved. In the 1980s, federal mandates reduced that flexibility; state