AIBU to think that saying the new childcare proposal discriminates against SAHP is like saying JSA discriminates against the employed?

[AnnieLobeseder]

So I know it's fairly old news, but the new government proposals to help working parents with childcare costs have been popping up on my BBC newsfeed this week.

Now there are plenty of things wrong with these new proposals, such as the "help" only being available for parents with under-5s to start with, and that students don't count as "employed" so if you're both/one of you are students and need childcare while you're at college you get no help at all. At least they're apparently going to count being a carer as "employed" so families where one parent stays home to care, they will get help with childcare.

However, what I don't understand is why these aren't the issues being highlighted, but instead, just people whining that SAHPs will lose out. Erm, please correct me if I'm missing some fundamental point here, but isn't that because SAHPs, by their very nature, don't need childcare!! That's why they stay at home - to look after their own children.

I've seem quotes that this is a "carrot dangled at SAHMs to tempt them back into work". Um, no, who the heck would put themselves into a situation they don't want for the sake of claiming a benefit they don't really need?

So to my mind, it's like complaining that you aren't entitled to JSA because you have a job, and saying that having JSA for those who need it is "dangling a carrot in front of people with jobs to tempt them into unemployment".

AIBU?

I think the sahm vs wohm debate is pointless. I also think the government will love that we're all talking about that rather than the holes in this policy. First it won't happen until 2015, it only applies to children under 5 and it just isn't enough.

I completely agree that things aren't always simple littlemiss

I think part of the problem is that people jump on the headline figures and actually when you think about it, very very few families are going to be earning a household income of 300k and if they are, they will be paying in the region of 8 or 9 k every month in tax. Honestly, the top earners contribute a massive slice of taxes overall so it's completely non sensical to suggest they are somehow gaining.. Another way of looking at it is that they aren't losing quite as much of their earnings!

At the other end of the spectrum, low waged workers already get a lot of help with childcare. Which is right and proper

Personally I think it's a shame the debate on this issue has been hijacked ( not just on here but the wider media) by a very exclusive demographic: the SAH wives of HT tax paying husbands. Really, in the big scheme of things, this group aren't going to elicit great sympathy. Any family with a HR tax payer is relatively well off, and when they have no childcare expenses, no double commute, maybe not even needing to run two cars plus all the other hidden costs of working (smart clothes, dry cleaning bills, professional fees etc ) it comes across as very entitled to be resentful of the small amount of help that's going to dual workers

I disagree with a lot of the detail of govt policies, but the principle of supporting families who are contributing economically is paramount especially as we battle to climb out of recession

janey your post interested me and for lower income families you're definitely right - people need help with childcare costs. However what gets people's goat is that when one of you stays at home to do the childcare instead of paying someone else to do it it seems that you deserve no help at all (rightly or wrongly so, it's a 'lifestyle choice' for some to work just as much as for some to say at home), but couples with much higher joint take home pay who both work are still given help. I was genuinely interested to know some figures so I worked out roughly what a couple on £60k would take home versus a couple both on 45k with all the expenses you list (assuming one child, monthly take home pay worked out roughly from the net salary calculator) -

60k couple (one earner)

Take home pay - £3465

45k x 2 couple (two earners)

Take home pay - £5480
Plus proposed childcare help (£100) and CB (£88) - £5668

Minus commute x 2 (£600), other work expenses (£200) and childcare (£1050) - £3818

So even if you took the childcare help and CB away from the second couple they would still have more money in their pocket than the first couple. So why do they deserve help? This is what people see as unfair. The policy needs to be consistent, either we can afford as a country to help 'higher' earners or we can't. Giving help to one group (2 x WOHP) whilst excluding another group (One WOHP, one SAHP) can only be ideological which is why SAHP feel put out. However that's the tip of the iceberg unfortunately, don't get me started on what they're doing with UC etc.

Littlemiss I think many people are agreeing though aren't we?

So you don't want a tax break toSAHP for childcare they don't need. Fine. I agree.

You think the cap on this tax relief should be £60k as per CB. Fine, I agree.

I'm sorry to see this has (probably predictably) turned into a SAHP vs WOHP argument, though at least no one has said those dreadful words "leaving your children to be brought up by strangers" yet!

But arguing about the intrinsic worth of SAHP is really irrelevant to this argument, and suggesting that it will force SAHP out to work is ridiculous. If you SAH and therefore don't use childcare, it won't affect you in the slightest, so why do you care? It's a tax break out of the salary of the employed. You don't earn a salary or pay tax to get a tax break from! And if you're home against your will due to high childcare costs, this new scheme may help you.

If childcare is still too expensive for you to go out to work (£1500 a month per child for full-time nursery here in the SE!) then hopefully you'd agree with me that these proposals still doesn't go far enough and all childcare costs should be completely tax-deductible.

I firmly believe that no one should ever find themselves in the position that they can't afford to work. And any short-term loss of tax through childcare, the government will gain back in long-term through more income tax paid due to better career progression without that enforced break.

Shitsinger, don't come on a parenting website and say sahm parents are only concerned about their own families. That is true of all parents and all parents play an equal role in society whether in paid work or not. Noone disagrees that parents should get parents should get help with childcare costs. But this policy stinks, is immensely divisive and still condemns the low paid to a life dependent on government hand outs myself included. But you can only see the benefits of it from the prism of your own existence.

ThereMust: It should pay to work. I think it's only fair that in a family where both parents work, and are sacrificing time spent with their children, have a slightly higher disposable income.

ThereMust: And in your comparison a family bringing in £30k more than the other family is only £4.8k better off. How is that fair?

Right solveproblem. So what if you are in the first couple's situation and can't afford to go to work? For many SAHM work doesn't pay. The new proposals will help but that will still be the case for many.

And that's very simplistic solveproblem - essentially the couple on £60k are doing their own childcare or the SAHP is 'working' as the childcare. Both parents are still doing a valuable role. Would your opinion be different if the SAHP was a childminder?

I've never said that SAHP's aren't doing something valuable, I think they do. But I don't think they need the governments funding.

Theremustbe... On your figures is it not surprising that family 2 has more money. You have compared family (a) on 60k with family (b) on 90k. So (b) ought to have 50% more cash left at the end than family a, and they don't- your figures in fact show that family (b) is actually worse off, which is what we all know is true from our experience. The other thing is that I don't know many families who only spend £1k a month on childcare, sounds a bargain to me, if you have several kids!

If you were to run your figures again with both families on the same income, the figures would show that family (a) has more money. I dont think that is unfair because what people here are saying is that even together they only earn the minimum they need; it is a lucky family where one parent can earn the 60k you suggest.

What would be interesting would be to work out how cheap childcare has to be before family (b) is better off, and then think about how many kids/ what part of the country you need to be in, before that's actually what it would cost.

That said I agree with the last poster- limit this new benefit to 60k like CB. I understand the "tax band" argument and its probably exactly what they did it, but they were wrong, and there are other ways to assess this.

Yes I know beast of - it was meant to be a simple comparison to demonstrate the unfairness of the policy (also I did state assuming one child). The point is that the policy is inherently unfair. All the points you and solveproblem are making are valid - but it is a choice to work as much as a choice not to. A WOHP could choose not work and not have childcare costs/ commute. In ten years time they will undoubtedly be in a better place than the SAHP who gave up work. Why should one choice be any more valid than another? Both have pros and cons. And you say that couple b would always be worse off - in my experience a lot of people in that situation have childcare help from GPs etc so that's not always true.

I hope people suggesting a £60k cap mean per individual, not combined income. Because as I said, with two children in nursery, here in the SE you'd need to earn over £36 just to break even on one of your salaries, and the other salary would have to cover rent/mortgage, bills etc. A couple on £60k combined would still very likely not be able to afford for both parents to work.

Putting my head above the parapet here, I earn about £115k a year and DH about £40k. Do I count as one of those who's pockets are being lined by the Tories? Because I sure don't feel like one.

I paid just over £30k tax last year, I don't claim childcare vouchers but why the funk shouldn't I? I have a zero personal allowance and the figure that is quoted is tax at 60% on everything between £100-115k.

I don't agree with students not getting them, I don't agree with the limit of 16 hours and I really sympathise with those who are in a catch 22 situation.

Is it that people feel that the more you pay into the system, the less you are entitled to take from it?

Precisely Annie.

I think the problem with the debate is that this is a tax policy, not a general comment on the validity of personal choices. Tax has a specific job to do in moving cash around, and it can influence behaviour, but it is not there to validate other choices outside that system. So, for instance, we no longer expect tax advantages for being religious, even though there is lots of evidence that organised religion produces behaviours that are a social good and probably save money on state interventions (I am not religious btw). It is no good looking to the tax system for validation of a choice to be a SAHM.

People earning 60k, or even 45k, are in the minority in this country. The average wage is a lot less. To get the maximum number of people back to work, if thats what it is for, this policy should help families where both earn 20k, which is a much more likely scenario. I am afraid I do think that the poster has a point, who said that families with one higher rate tax payer and a SAHP are in a far better financial position than many of the families this is aimed at, and they ought to recognise this.

A policy which is about reducing the costs of paid for childcare to promote employment cannot possibly be relevant to a family that doesn't have any, or only wants it for leisure purposes. The state may well want to promote SAHM another way, and being Tories they think that's about allowances for being married (sigh), and if they did, I would support it. But it would another policy.

I have been both SAHM (7 years) and WOHM so have lived both sides of the debate. SAHM are not less valuable than WOHM, it's just that this policy is not about them.

We all agree that it should be 60k, not 300k.

I would also point out to people saying that working is a "lifestyle choice" (a ridiculous notion if ever I heard one) that even with tax breaks, unless you are a very low earner, people in work are paying more into the system than they get out. A tax break just means you get to put a little less in, not that you are taking out.

As has already been said, these working people are your children's teachers, your GP, the scientists trying to find a cure for your sister's cancer. For the most part these careers would be irreparably damaged by a 5-10 year break to stay home and avoid childcare costs. Continuing to provide you with the services you need is not a lifestyle choice, it's just life.

Agree Annie, that's why I thought we should redo those figures at 60k, and then see how cheap childcare has to be before people can be as well off in family b as in family a. I think the answer is probably free childcare- or minus cost, given the other costs of employment!

Oh FGS. Yes working is essential, yes for many it is essential to pay bills and also many jobs are essential like the ones you have pointed out. BUT. Looking after the children we all choose to have is also essential. As previous posters have pointed out, why do WOHP need some extra help where SAHP don't? We all chose to have children so should be able to finance this ourselves? (NB not talking about low income families, childcare costs are ludicrous and if families NEED help they should get it. A family on £300k does not need help).

Neither does a family on 100k.

Exactly.

Theremustbeanother:
First of all, the family with 2 earners on 45 k are going to have childcare costs which could very easily push them into having less disposable income at the end than the single earner family. You only need to have a couple of kids and you're looking at maybe 1.5k/ 2k every month in childcare bills. Also you have more expenses in the way of commuting etc

Secondly- and to me this is the key point: you aren't comparing like with like. You are trying to compare a family where only one person works with one where 2 adults work. Lets suppose you take a typical working week as 37 hours (and yes I know many people work longer, especially in the income bracket you're describing) then a family with 2 earners are putting in 74 hours (plus still running the home, raising their children) ... Wny would they not get more money ? They are doing more work

We all agree the limits are set too high. But that's what they do- they use tax brackets and then recoup that tax some other way on the higher earners, probably by leaving the highest rate band up there for a bit longer. It's foolish of them, because we can't see the whole picture, so we don't believe they will claw it back (and indeed, they might not).

Financial help for SAHP should exist- through transferable personal allowances, I would say- it just shouldn't be linked to paid childcare.

When they put this policy together it will, have been about increasing employment. Their alternatives will have been more skilled immigration (politically toxic) or more retraining (expensive and uncertain). Probably they wanted x amount of money and the treasury only gave them y, so they know the amounts aren't enough.

It's not a policy about reducing family poverty. There have been other things, such as surestart, aimed at that. I agree we could all do with more on this. Sahp families deserve help where they are living in poverty. But it needs to be a separate policy.

I do think we agree on most things. Many families with one earner need help too. People on high incomes don't. This policy has the wrong limits on it. It's not quite enough money for the people who do want to go back to work.

Janet, if you read my post you will that the main reason they get more money is that the post compares a family on 60k with one on 90k. To be fair, it should compare like with like- single earner and dual earner families both on 60k. That would probably show that any childcare expense makes them worse off, only free childcare would make it the same.