In the matter of Dudas v. Dudas, a trial court decision approved for publishing on November 1, 2011, the trial court can consider a spouse's post-filing increase in salary between the date of fling of a divorce complaint and trial.  

In this case, the husband was the primary wage earner of the family with an income ranging from $14,000 at the beginning of the marriage to $59,000 by the end.  After filing, the husband's salary increased to $76,000.

The court held, in pertinent part, that the New Jersey Alimony Statute, NJSA 2A:34-23(b) permits the court to consider the spouse's ability to pay.  

While I do not disagree that the statute provides for such review, court's need to be mindful that another, and possibly the more important factors to consider, are the marital lifestyle and the other spouse's ability to earn.  Whether or not a spouse begins earning more post-filing should not create a windfall for the other spouse to benefit from these efforts if the marital lifestyle and the other spouse's ability to earn are sufficient to meet his/her needs. 

This further begs the question: if the court is considering post-filing increases in income, will it consider post-filing decreases?  Historically and quite uniformly, courts "impute" a person's income to a level commensurate with the history of earnings.  This helps eliminate what we practitioner's call "RAIDES": a Rapid And Immediate Decrease in Earnings Syndrome which accounts for some spouse's desire to earn less so they pay less.  Imputation of income eliminated this gamesmanship.  However, this decision opens the door for spouse's to argue that decreases in earning post-filing should be considered.

Additionally, this focus, more importantly, could open the door for incessant post-judgment discovery.  In practice, many parties do not update his/her financial information before trial as required by the Rule of Court.  As such, many settlements are procured without the most recent information.  This practice persists because, primarily, alimony considerations focus on the earning history, or average, throughout the marriage.  Now, you will have spouses seeking to revisit settlement agreements and trial verdicts if they believe the other spouse may be earning more.