Among the hardest hit by the recession are … children of separated parents.

The reality of rising unemployment and underemployment on the one hand.

And the fear of impending layoffs or other job loss on the other hand.

Family courts everywhere are busy with noncustodial parents seeking downward modifications of child support, even while custodial parents are seeking enforcement of existing child support obligations.

Some parents who never missed payments before are struggling and missing them now.

In New York state, for example, many family court judges are granting reductions of child support obligations frequently under the circumstances, sometimes dramatic reductions.

Since children still need support regardless of a noncustodial parent’s unemployment, layoffs or the like, however, custodial parents are turning to public assistance of various kinds, often for the first time.

And it’s not just people “on the fringes” who are affected.

Family court judges are seeing among those seeking modifications of child support recently comfortable to wealthy Wall Street executives, who have been wiped out by shrinking portfolios.

Unemployment benefits are income, however.

Read more in this New York Times article: Fighting Over Child Support After the Pink Slip Arrives.