An article on a child support lawsuit in Canada may be worth watching. The plaintiff is “Alana Jung, a 25-year-old college student studying early childhood education.” She had sex with a basketball player and now, under the Canadian child support formula, a nationwide system unlike our state-by-state patchwork, she is entitled to a tax-free $1.355 million per year. As there is no fixed age for the termination of child support in Canada (see the Canada chapter of Real World Divorce), she is potentially looking at 25 years of revenue or $33.9 million total. An early childhood educator in Alberta earns about $14.50 per hour (source) pre-tax. Ignoring the tax differential and assuming 1800 hours of work per year, the plaintiff would there collect 1300 years of income under the formula.
The defendant has offered to give her $180,000 per year, which would work out to perhaps $4.5 million until the child ages out of the system. The plaintiff seeks somewhere between $600,000 per year and $1 million per year (up to $25 million in revenue). Supposedly in mid-October a judge will decide what level of profitability is appropriate.
Canadians sometimes express resentment that ownership of a child is more profitable than going to college and working, but in fact children in Canada are less lucrative than children in some U.S. states.