No, it's not true. The courts cannot force someone to give up more of their income than legally allowed just because they willingly changed to a job with lower pay; you can't force someone into poverty just because they used to make more money. And unless you have proof that he switched to a lower paying job on purpose, such as statements from him saying as much, you have no idea why he might have left the other job and the judge won't care about it. People change jobs; it's a part of life and they do it for many, many reasons. That he didn't try to hide this new employment from anyone is a big point in his favor; parents that are trying to duck out on their obligations just hide the jobs they are working; my mother did this for many years.

You can request that they re-evaluate the child support order, but be prepared for it to be lowered if you think he might be making less where he is currently at.

Actually it depends on the judge. Some judges will base it on his past income. Others will use what is called imputed income and base it on what he was making before since that is his supposed income potential.

Some automatically think that everything is an effort to duck out of more child support. I haven't studied it too much recently, but I'm really hoping they're rethinking that with the current recession.

What kind of pay cut are you envisioning here? Was he the administrator of a hospital making a quarter million dollars a year and quit that job to work at McDonalds? Yes, in that case he obviously is willingly underemployed/underpaid.

On the other hand, if he went from changing oil at one franchise shop to changing oil at a different one making fifty cents an hour less, but with better heath insurance, no one is going to claim he took a different job to avoid paying child support, that's simply petty.

Devil is in the details, as usual.