Worked example · updated 2026-08-02
Two children in Texas, and why the other parent's income never appears
A hypothetical Texas household with two children and one earner before the court. The guideline reads a percentage off a statutory schedule, applies it to net resources, and stops at a ceiling published outside the code — three details that decide the whole figure.
Illustrative worked example. The household is hypothetical; every figure is computed by the same verified engines and rule packs the calculators use.
The situation
A hypothetical parent in Texas has two children before the court and monthly net resources of $6,000. They support no children in another household. Nothing else about this family is specified, because under Chapter 154 nothing else enters the arithmetic — not the other parent's earnings, not the parenting schedule, not either household's expenses. The figures below are computed by the same engine and the same verified rule pack the Texas calculator on this site uses.
What goes in
- Children before the court
- 2
- Paying parent’s monthly net resources
- $6,000
- Children supported in other households
- None
What comes out
Guideline monthly child support
$1,500
Presumptively correct under Chapter 154, and a court may still depart from it.
- Guideline percentage for 2 childrenFrom the statutory schedule; the other parent’s income does not enter it.
- 25%
- Net resources the percentage applies toThe guideline ceiling is $11,700 a month.
- $6,000
- Same order, over a year
- $18,000
- Headroom before the ceiling bindsAbove the ceiling the percentages stop and proven needs take over.
- $5,700
Verified 2026-08-02 against Texas Family Code, Chapter 154 (Child Support), §§154.062, 154.125, 154.129 (effective 2025-09-01)
The other parent's income is genuinely absent
Texas is a percentage-of-income state. The guideline takes a share of the obligor's net resources and asks nothing about what the other parent earns. That is the single largest difference between Texas and the income-shares majority, and it is why a Texas figure and a figure from a neighbouring state can diverge sharply for households that look identical on paper. Whether that is the right policy is a legislative question; whether it is the law is not, and the statute is linked beside every result.
Net resources is a defined term, not a payslip line
The $6,000 above is net resources as Chapter 154 defines it: gross resources, broadly drawn, less a closed list of deductions. Social security taxes come out. Federal income tax comes out, but computed as though the payer were single claiming one personal exemption and the standard deduction, whatever their actual filing status is. State income tax, union dues, and the children's health and dental insurance come out. A mortgage does not. A car payment does not. A retirement contribution does not. Two people with identical take-home pay can therefore have different net resources, and the one whose real filing status is more favourable than the statutory assumption is the one who notices.
The ceiling that lives outside the statute
The guideline percentages apply only up to a cap on monthly net resources, and above that cap the percentages simply stop — further support has to be justified separately by the proven needs of the child. The interesting part is where the cap lives. The Family Code does not print it. It directs the Office of the Attorney General to adjust the figure for inflation every six years and publish the result in the Texas Register, so the operative number sits in a publication rather than in the code. A page quoting an older cap is quoting a figure that was superseded, not one that was ever wrong, which is exactly the failure mode a dated rule pack exists to prevent.
Where the arithmetic ends and a judge begins
The figure the engine produces is presumptively correct. It is not an order. Chapter 154 lists factors a court may weigh in deciding that guideline support would be unjust or inappropriate in a particular case, and a court departing from the guideline says why on the record. Add-ons for health insurance and uninsured medical expenses are ordered separately from the percentage. That is why the result on this site carries the court-discretion note verbatim rather than in a paraphrase we invented.
What this example is good for
It shows what the Texas guideline does with a clean set of facts, and which facts it ignores. If your own situation adds children in another household, resources above the ceiling, or a reason to depart from the guideline, this is the baseline those arguments start from rather than the answer.
Run this with your own numbers — Child Support
Every state sets child support with a published guideline formula — income shares, percentage of income, or the Melson formula. Pick your state to run its own math step by step, see which figures the statute actually uses, and open the official worksheet it comes from.
Estimate only — not legal advice. This is the published math for child support calculator by state, shown as a range. Your actual outcome depends on facts, evidence, and decisions this page cannot see.
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