To be angry about the new "free" nursery hours

It will pass. Your children will go to school. Then, unless you are planning private school, you will be better off. Just bite the bullet.

Having said what I said in my previous post.
I think that parents should not be funded for child care
But working parents should have tax break
For example ...your husband should not be taxed for the first 50k.of his salary if he has children under 3 and for mums the same.

High earners shouldn't get punished for being high earners.
The system is flawed against the middle class.

The working class if not entitled to free childcare should then have tax breaks on the first 50k.

Seems the middle class are funding the whole nation plus all the overseas war they fund (Ukraine and Israel).

The middle class are punished. For working hard.

Weird isn't it - that a bunch of over-promoted flag-shagging Tory toffs who just fancied being ace government finance whizzkids divvying up the common wealth for the sole benefit of their friends and family, with no regard for genuine public service, could mess up social policy so badly?

Let me please explain who the free nursery is designed for

It is for parents who when putting their kids in nursery who if had to pay would not be able to go to work due to cost of nursery being higher that wage they receive.

For instance
I worked with a lovely mum who had two children.
Before the free nursery she was paying £60 a day in nursery fees and earning £55 a day. She was having to pay extra in addition to working.

Now i am going to assume you are on minimum wage just because you have stated what you are on. Your combined income is 120k.
You can afford it.
Sorry but i don't see why the tax payer should help people on higher salaries.

I'm not in London and even I was paying more than £3k for my 2 boys to attend nursery.... and even that was a couple of years ago!

Cry me a river.

Given the increased support for early years childcare, it seems as though the government are admitting that yes it’s crucial and they need to fund it…

… but have elected to exclude a small number of people from it on initial implementation, and now can’t row back on that without the inevitable ‘giving money to high earners’ headlines.

But - more people are being hit due to inflation and freezing of thresholds, so I anticipate this will become a bigger issue in the next few years. It’s certainly noticeable on mumsnet - seems like a user a day is discovering what this means for them!

I don't think women should ever think of childcare costs as coming out of their salary rather than out of the joint pot.

That's a rationale for women giving up careers which they later regret.

Childcare isn't your little luxury. It's a cost of parenting and should be born by parents - both of them.

Please outline how my calculations are incorrect

Isn’t the fundamental question actually “why is pre school education not state provided in the same way as primary and secondary?”. It is ridiculous that both Labour and Conservative policies seemingly disregard the importance of early years education.

There is the question of how we would pay for state nursery education…in the same way we pay for primary and secondary education albeit with tax increases across the board to reflect the increased cost.

That, to me at least, seems more sensible than exorbitant childcare costs, a poorly applied and frankly unfair system of free hours, and underfunded nurseries (despite the exorbitant fees) who pay their staff a basic wage.

Preschool education should be about what is best for all children and the future of our society, and not based upon what their parents can or cannot afford.

I’ll get off my soap box now…

Ypu didn’t seem familiar with it. Also, no apology for your rude assumption that I was a scrounged - while still wanting extra benefits for yourself?
Yes, we could manage things better in this country, the Tories have really fucked it all over, but it’s still pointless to redistribute money to people who don’t need it. Everyone is poor when their children are in nursery (and yes, I think that could be managed better too) but it’s only a couple of years and I don’t think too many will give up jobs they can’t get back for the sake of a few years.

Agree. And don't forget these earners are taxed significantly and more than contribute to the public purse.

I'm guessing you don't work in STEM
as your maths ain't mathing. Or you have a shit ton of young kids.

i am familiar with the concept of progressive taxation thank you very much.
however there is a concept and there is implementation of a concept which can vary hugely between various countries. In the UK lots of people do not contribute at all and the taxation income is disproportionately coming from a small percentage of high earners. Disproportionately as in unsustainably. And policies like this- which encourage high earners to make less money, pay into pension or go part time, because they need childcare to keep working, are going to hurt the revenues and ultimately those who rely on these high earners to prop them up

You would almost think that this plan was not designed to benefit working parents, but rather to benefit Sunak's wife, who runs a massive chain of nurseries.

How much over £100k does your DH earn? You need to take off pension AND you can also take off an extra 25p per £1 of pension deducted if your pension provider has already given your DH tax relief at basic rate.

You are out of touch, it is now absolutely the going rate. Your figures are correct from 2-3 years ago

That’s how progressive tax works, yes. The more you earn the more you pay and that money is used to subsidise/help those who need it. If you start redirecting it back to those who don’t need the help it becomes pointless. The high earners get a functioning society, same as everyone else. They also get roads, police, armed forces, state schools, NHS, fire service , coastguard etc etc etc. That’s SOMETHING, right?
Edit. Just noticed the very rude ‘didn’t feel the need to earn more’ segment. I didn’t feel I needed more. I couldn’t earn more because I was a teacher. That’s the thing. There are lots of absolutely vital jobs with pay below these high levels, and lots of jobs at them we would probably never notice if they vanished. I had no free nurser6 hours as. Single patent in the 90s, by the way, so don’t worry about how much I’ve been heroically subsidised by you awfully generous high earning types. I got child tax credits for a bit, and child benefit. Otherwise no benefits in my adult life.

If the nursery fees are more than you earn why not stay at home and look after your children til they start school?

it shows that you never made this kind of money, because if you did, you would know that high earners subsidise everyone else including you (who “didn’t feel the need” to earn more - sure you didn’t, because someone else is subsidising your use of public services!).
so these people don’t want magic “free” stuff - they just want to get back at least SOMETHING they paid for for everyone else

My little one should be getting 15 free hours when he turns three but every nursery we have visited/contacted is either full for years or doesn’t do term time only so will be £400-£600 a month which we just can’t afford 🤷‍♀️

I hear you. We earn well but feel poor, we managed but moved out of London doing remote work. We no longer need childcare so can finally start paying off mortgage. University fees are on its way, can only hope the children can survive by themselves, we have nothing left to give.

You are lucky your child has a nursery space! There are long waiting lists here so the whole scheme is just that, a scheme. Sold a lie.

I think people don’t realise how mental the cost of living is in London.

Rent: £2,500 (this is going to get a pretty ordinary flat)
Childcare at £100 a day for two: £4,000

That’s £6,500 before you’ve paid any household bills, travelled to work etc. That’s quite a bit more than the take home pay on £100k.

It’s the childcare cost that is particularly onerous - but of course, that is what we keep seeing posts complaining about. It’s the majority of people’s incomes and yet they’re still told they’re too high earning for help - while paying enormously high taxes.

Agree. We live in London and just one person with an income of over 100K doesn’t get you far. Our mortgage is huge and our nursery fees have shot up as a result of the ‘free hours’.

Annoys me more because everyone I know in London seems to have wealthy parents who have given ‘help’ with a house deposit. They get the free hours because they look poorer than us on paper but they’re really far, far richer.

We got given nothing for a house deposit and still have huge student loans to pay. I recognise we are still hugely fortunate (I’m from a poor region of the UK so really do get this) but cost of living is high round these parts and I’m angry our nursery fees have jumped.