Ohio law index
ORC § 2919.21: Nonsupport of dependents
ORC 2919.21 makes certain failures to provide support a crime, separate from civil child support enforcement by the county CSEA.
Plain-language summary, not the statute text. Laws change. Read the official text and confirm current law before relying on anything here.
Read the official text of ORC § 2919.21
Our coverage citing ORC § 2919.21
Income You Don't Have
Ohio courts can set child support on income a parent does not earn. When the estimate is wrong, the law makes it slow to correct and impossible to undo, and the enforcement tools that follow can reduce a parent's ability to pay. The result is a debt that grows fastest for the people least able to pay it, and children who receive little of it.
Who Decides Who Counts
Before any court weighs interests, it decides whose interests are on the ledger at all. Ohio's family law makes that membership decision in ways that tax parents without representation and govern children without consent, sometimes long past childhood.