Net resources, not salary

Published 2026-09-23 · Last reviewed 2026-09-23

A state that uses a percentage usually looks simpler than a state with a table, and it is - but the simplicity hides where the rule actually does its work. The percentage is chosen by the number of children, and the base it multiplies is not a salary and not everything a salary is.

In Texas, which this page uses as the example, that base is called net resources, and two of the three numbers that decide a payment - the cap the base stops at and the table used below the low-income line - sit in the base itself, not in the percentage anyone quotes.

The percentage is a child count, not a rate schedule

Texas's own table prints one share per number of children: 20% for one and 25% for two. So on $3,000 a month of net resources with one child the payment is $600 a month and $7,200 a year. The arithmetic ends at the multiplication; nobody would fight over a single percentage. The arguments start at the two numbers the percentage does not contain.

The cap turns part of income into nothing

Texas caps net resources at $11,700 a month before the percentage applies. Take $18,000 a month and two children: the table looks up $11,700, the cap, and the $6,300 above it simply stops counting. The payment is 25% of the capped base - $2,925 a month, $35,100 a year - and raising the income further changes nothing. "Capped" is a loaded word only until you read it this way: it is the state saying that beyond a point, more income to a paying parent is not translated into more support for that child.

Under the low-income line, a second table

Below $1,000 a month a share state does not always use the same percentage. Texas runs a separate low-income table, with its own, lower shares, so two children on $800 a month - well under the line - produce 20% rather than the standard percentage: $160 a month, $1,920 a year. A percentage alone cannot tell you which table you are in; the base decides that.

Children outside the order change the share, not the base

A paying parent with other children has a duty to them too, and Texas's own calculator turns that into a credit against the share. With $5,000 a month and one child in the order, the table's share is 20%; with two children outside the order the credit shaves it to 16%, so the payment is $800 a month. The base still counts in full; only the percentage shrinks. All four of these examples are lines the calculator knows, and each is priced by the same function.

Where these numbers come from

• Texas Family Code Sec. 154.125, published by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas and read from that calculator. The cap, the low-income threshold, the shares and the credit are applied by the same calculation the Child Support Calculator runs, so the four estimates above are what the tool would print for the same inputs.
• The base is an input, not a computed line. Texas's own calculator works net resources out from a wage using payroll-tax rates and a federal tax chart that change every year; this site does not repeat that separate set of steps, so it takes net resources as an input and says so beside the field.
• The credit follows Texas's own arithmetic. The state's own instructions compute it as one child's share of the all-children percentage times the number of children outside the order; it is quoted here exactly as the calculation applies it, not approximated.

What this guide does not cover

This page explains one state's flat shape. It does not derive net resources from a pay stub - that is the second engine the tool deliberately leaves to the visitor; it says nothing about how the court treats deviations, step-downs or shared custody, which in Texas go through the court rather than the percentage; and it does not compare Texas with the other shapes in this tool. It also makes no claim about what a court in any state will order.

The only thing it asserts is arithmetic: in a share state, the base the percentage multiplies carries as much of the rule as the percentage does.

Enter your own net resources in the Child Support Calculator, compare a court-decided spousal amount in the Alimony Calculator, or see what your take-home actually is in the Paycheck Calculator.

An estimate of a statutory guideline only - not legal, tax or financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.