Can the state of NC take my entire monthly SSDI for back child support without prior notification?

No. The state of NC does not take anything. If child support is owed, the state has a child support central collections unit for support set up by court order. The collection unit can garnish your disability check on behalf of the child. If the child received welfare benefits then the welfare agency also can garnish your disability to recoup some of the money expended by the state for the care of your child. Child support is governed by the child support guidelines (if your child lives in NC; if the child does not, then support would be governed by the state laws of where the child resides or a child support order was entered). The website for NC is www.ncchildsupport.com. Child support is based on the combined monthly income of the parents. Both parents have a duty to support their child until the child turns 18 or graduates from high school, whichever is later. So child support cannot take 100% of your disability. If an order was established and you are in arrears but there is an ongoing support order, then your SSDI check will be garnished in a set amount but some will go towards arrears and some towards the ongoing support. If your child is over 18 now and you just owe arrears, child support can still be garnished but the amount will go to arrears. The garnishment is a monthly amount from each check. I don't quite understand what you mean by your check being garnished without notice. That is not really possible. To establish a support order there would have had to be an application for support filed by your wife or an action to recoup filed by DHHS. So there would have been some proceeding somewhere. There would have to be a garnishment order sent to Social Security and Social Security would send you a letter advising of the garnishment in advance of the garnishment too. So this is not done in secret. Your post contains no information about this so its not possible for me to know where things stand. If I were you, I would either talk to a family lawyer in the county/state where the support order was entered or, if you cannot afford a lawyer, then talk to the child support authorities for that county. The contact information for child support enforcement can be found at the link I sent you if the support is based in NC. You can voluntarily arrange for garnishment. I also don't know exactly what you mean by back child support. A parent can seek retroactive support for a child for the 3 years preceding the filing of a support complaint. Otherwise, support starts on the day a support complaint is filed. Or was an order already established and you did not pay creating arrears? If an order was established and then you became disabled, rather than allow arrears to continue, did you seek to modify the support order based on the change in your income? If not, I would seek to do it now so it will help reduce the child support you owe.