Childcare reform: what about parents not on benefits?

I don't begrudge people on benefits a penny. Simultaneously, I'm an NHS worker in a shortage profession (aren't they all) and can't afford to go back to work full time because of childcare costs for a schoolchild and a baby. The monthly cost is still more than my mortgage, even without it being full time. And yet, nurseries are closing down left, right & centre in my naice MC area because they can't afford to stay open. Completely ludicrous state of affairs. I wish I knew what the answer was.

NONE of that is free, it’s funded by the working tax payer! Both myself and my partner are on a good wage, but the costs of child care and just breathing on this planet is crippling us!

It is madness that there are funded hours available for children who have a parent at home full time, while working single parents get no additional allowances over a couple. Absolutely no logic, the same as the thresholds not being set on a household income basis. If only we had a Government with a single functioning brain between them. Doesn't seem to be any prospect of that even after the election, though.

It’s shit, it’s totally utterly shit. I’m so sick of working my arse off for fuck all, our salaries go all on bills! So so fed up of it.

my gas and electricity has gone from £40 pm to £300 pm

my Mortgage has gone from £960 pm to £2500 pm.

childcare £850 pm.

and we get zero help! We cannot afford the fucking basics.

If you have a health condition that impacts you to the extent you cannot do any paid work, you will most likely be entitled to some benefits.

You say you are not working right now, do you really need to be paying for childcare? As a household you are on a pretty low income, so paying for childcare when only one of you works seems nonsensical.

Yep, exactly what I suggested. As well as obviously far more direct funding to parents whose childcare can't cope in mainstream settings. A disgrace that neither party has even acknowledged the issue of provision for disabled children who need far more expensive care, the usual complete erasure of disabled people. An annual grant of £X per hour to the parents of disabled kids based on their working hours, as a top up to reflect that their children's care is more expensive, would be a very straightforward way to do it. And then obviously doubling of all the thesholds for tax and childcare for single parents to remove the discrimination in the system. It really isn't rocket science to fix it all and asministratively would not even be very complex.

They should just let working parent to reduce taxes on the full childcare - “tax free” childcare rather than cap at £2k a year. £2k a year wouldn’t even enough to pay the nappies or just one meal for our child, let alone “tax free”. It’s a joke.

Op have you looked at UC with the LCWRA element factored in? I believe if you have this element for one parent then you can claim childcare costs ? I would speak to CAB to clarify.

Yes and the £19k is from taxed income! So for a higher rate taxpayer that's £47k of their salary, for childcare for one child. But if you work hard to increase earnings to compensate, they'll then withdraw your personal allowance and "tax free childcare" and funded hours from 3 years old so you end up with an effective tax rate of 85%!!

Some incentive.

Government needs to take a long, hard look at the tax thresholds at all levels if it wants productivity to improve:

amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/13/full-time-part-time-work-no-longer-pays-uk-economy

A good start would be making childcare genuinely tax free for everyone with no annual cap. Get rid of the current useless scheme and simply make an adjustment through people's tax codes so that it's paid from gross not net salary.

That is shocking.

And I’m sorry the new budget to help the UC family in a way will just make woman to look for lower paid job (part time/ minimum wages etc.) just to get to the UC level to get more helps with insane childcare costs.

The vast majority of people claiming UC are working. The whole point of Uc is to get people working if they can. Of course there will be some such as disabled people, carers etc who aren't working. The taper rates and work allowances for earnings mean UC is meant to make it pay to work but clearly they've decided that the childcare element needs to be more generous.

Problem at the moment and with the budget is they don’t offer helps to the majority of families that use nursery for childcare - where both parents working full time so earn above the UC, with one or 2 kids.
not sure about other area, our area is £1600 average for 1 child full time all year below 3 years old. That’s £19k average (after £2k tax credit). For most, you just can’t afford if you have two kids below school age.
by choice, we choose to only have 1 kid as I want to continue working. and we barely can make it break even each month with the rise of living costs at the moment.
for lots of woman, it’s just makes sense to stay home or part time and use the 15hours. Which I totally get it why. This budget helps doesn’t help anything for us! And literally there isn’t much helps below 3 years old from the government to help woman back into work, or higher income work.

@justwren it is 30hrs as long as neither parent earns over £100k

Are you working ? If not do you want to work ? Have you checked whether you are eligible for UC ?

It is a complete joke. People eligible for UC can claim up to 85% of childcare costs back already. The "tax free childcare" everyone else gets isn't tax free for many people, the discount is only 20% and it has a cap of £2000 discount per child per year. The "30 hours" is actually only 22 hours per week and even then doesn't cover the full cost for those hours.

Single parents who work will obviously need more childcare than a couple would or have less earning capability as they only have 24 hours per day to do everything and yet there is no additional allowance for them to reflect this. There is also no additional childcare funding for DCs with disabilities who need much more expensive care. Labours' suggested plans aren't much better: again no additional provision for single parents and focused entirely on mainstream wrap around care etc, no provision to provide extra funds to parents of disabled DC who need 1:1 care.

All politicians are absolutely clueless on this issue. And the reforms needed to the tax system and thresholds for the tax free allowance, child benefit, "tax-free childcare" and funded hours earnings cut-off, etc.

As a PP explained a properly funded childcare system pays for itself in productivity and tax revenue gains many times over. That's why other countries fund it, not out of the goodness of their hearts. Unfortunately our country is run by idiots and only has idiots to choose from even when we have an election so it's unlikely that sensible reforms to tax and childcare etc will be made.

It is stopping working people from working more though. I earn a good salary as does my husband so we don’t get UC. I work 4 days per week compressed into 3 days as it’s not economical for me to work full time. We max out the tax free childcare help on three days and if I went full time we would lose child benefit. The amount extra is take home if I went full time would be less than the additional childcare cost. I would go full time if childcare was cheaper and it would benefit the economy as I’d be a high tax payer.

So why is she forking out for childcare?

The OP isn't in work.

The change is being made to get people into work for whom childcare costs are the barrier.

You are already in work.

That's why.

PS I get it and sympathise. I never had any govt help with childcare and no free hours either.

I still don’t understand why you need so much childcare if you’re not working. If you need it because of health conditions PIP would help with that

The increase in the childcare amount on UC will mean more people are eligible for UC

We work and receive benefits, the vast majority of benefit spend goes to working people. The govt will cover up to 85% of childcare in many cases, the OPs issue is that she doesn't work.

It is for people who are working

I am confused, why are people on benefits getting more help with childcare when presumably they aren't working so don't need childcare? We are on low income but not low enough for UC so have to pay for everything.