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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask about child tax credit cuts.

478 replies

yellowbird11 · 23/10/2015 16:09

Is it inevitable and if so will it affect everyone? what a massive worry to all of you who are going to be affected.My DD works 16 hours a week and has 1 child. She'd love to do more hours as her child is at school but isn't able to. Can anyone give me any idea how much she'll lose, and when? I'm so worried for her because I know without these tax credits they'll be barely able to eat and keep warm. How can these Tory bs sleep at night?

OP posts:
AllOfTheCoffee · 24/10/2015 15:02

I've only read the first few pages, so the thread may have moved on but could someone outline my choices please? I can't figure them out and I'd love to chose not to have to rely on housing benefit and CTC/WTC.

I work 21 hours a week. My employer has no more hours to offer me and is talking about cutting hours once the change to NMW comes in because his business is making less and less money each year and he simply cannot afford more outgoings.

Childminders are like gold dust in this town, there are waiting lists. I cannot afford to pay a childminder if I don't have more hours, I can't apply for jobs with more hours until I have someone to collect my child from school.

What options do I have?

Needaninsight · 24/10/2015 15:02

Cookie I do work evenings. Afternoon/evenings but need overlap childcare. I don't see my husband at all.We totally work round each other.

I'm also one of the many who don't have the luxury of family to provide free childcare for them whilst they go out to work.

howabout · 24/10/2015 15:29

Cookie childcare is not the only issue. For a basic rate taxpayer the marginal rate within TC changes is 80% +. That is a lot of extra hours to make up £1,000 +. The paradox of working but being no better off will be even worse than it already is for the majority of families in the UK.

Babyroobs · 24/10/2015 16:01

All of - Could you consider becoming a childminder yourself if there is such a shortage of them and your current job is at risk? Just a thought, it's not everyone's cup of tea, certainly wouldn't be mine !

evilcherub · 24/10/2015 16:55

People didn't even need tax credits years ago. When I had my 16 yr old you could buy a 3 bed house for under 70k
Housing
Housing
Housing
It's the main problem

^This.

The elephant in the room is HOUSING! It's too bloody expensive and the reason why tax credits, housing benefits and most other benefits have to exist.

AllOfTheCoffee · 24/10/2015 17:03

I'll admit it has crossed my mind from time to time, Babyroobs, but I am so not childminder material. Children irritate me, as do mess, crafts, baking, homework.

I'd last 2 minutes before the complaints started coming in and I lost all of my clients.

I'm applying for jobs as often as possible, but school hours work is hard to come by and I only have free childcare certain nights each week, so I'm exact opposite of flexible which almost all shift work jobs require you to be. 9-5 is out of the question until I have a childminder or my child is old enough to take herself home from school.

I would love a better job, with more hours, there's just no way I could have that atm.

Mistigri · 24/10/2015 17:12

What does a childminder earn anyway? Almost all of the women I know who work as childminders do so as a second family income, not as a main source of income. It doesn't pay the bills, or at least not on its own. You also need suitable accommodation, etc.

Mistigri · 24/10/2015 17:17

Google answered my question. babyroobs, the average childminder in 2012 (latest figs I could find) earned under £7600. It's hardly a route out of poverty for people on tax credits.

Justanotherlurker · 24/10/2015 17:39

Whilst I agree with you evil that housing is the elephant in the room, there is some that suggest that the introduction of tax credits actually helped fuel the problem.

Babyroobs · 24/10/2015 17:40

Misti, I guess it depends how many kids you mind. Obviously if you have to take your own preschoolers into consideration it isn't going to be lucrative. I have a couple of lone parent friends who seem to be doing ok childnminding but obviously I don't know how much they still rely on tax credits as well. It was just a suggestion to the poster who was facing having her work hours cut and was struggling to find a childminder, that's all.

Babyroobs · 24/10/2015 17:46

Regarding housing - we bought our home in 2002 a couple of years after tax credits were introduced and just before house price started to climb steeply. At the time with lower paid jobs and 3 small children we got hundreds in tax credits and yes I think that money was a factor in us being able to afford to buy when we did. I guess that was the case for a lot of people. Mortgage lenders took tax credits into account. I think tax credits were even more generous in those days, I remember being astounded at the amount of free money we were handed, especially as we had just returned from a country with no benefits, no child benefit, tax credits or even mat pay. I agree now it is so much harder for people to buy and rents are extortionate in some parts of the country.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 24/10/2015 20:07

Misti.

My childminder (whose DH is also a childminder both are full with waiting lists) earn a minimum of 860 a week just from me and that would be a light week.

Mistigri · 24/10/2015 20:13

Needs I don't doubt there are people who do well out of childminding, if they live in an area where you can charge a decent hourly rate. It might be a solution for some people - if they have suitable accommodation, and (if renting) assuming that running a childminding business is allowed under their contract. But it's hard to see it as an easy route out of poverty for most of the people who will lose money.

NeedsAsockamnesty · 24/10/2015 20:27

I doubt it's easy I'm astounded they have both not had breakdowns having to hang out and enjoy finger painting and crap like that with shit loads of under 5's all day every day.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 25/10/2015 07:04

Surely people should become childminders because they would like to work with children?

It worries me that lots of people just do it because it's a good income, tbh.

howabout · 25/10/2015 08:09

Needs the maximum childcare claim under TC is £300 per week recoverable at 70% so £210. If you are paying your childminder £860 per week and believe this is reasonable and typical then I struggle to see how anyone claiming TC and paying for childcare can afford to work.

MrsItsNoworNotatAll · 25/10/2015 09:27

These cuts ARE about punishing people. It's cruel and I don't see how they are going to force people to find full time work when there isn't an abundance of it about. You can't just magic it up.

I might only work part time but I work frigging hard. It's back breaking graft and I aren't getting any younger so it's getting harder still. I probably work a lot harder than a lot of you full-time workers!

NeedsAsockamnesty · 25/10/2015 09:50

I know that how I posted the exact same thing a few days ago. My childcare is 11 hours per day every week day plus at least one over night per week for two under 3's.

What I was saying in my post a few days ago was that the maths did not work out someone working full time every day on NMW with the max allowable plus their wages would not be able to pay childcare because they wouldn't have enough money even if they had nothing else to pay

howabout · 25/10/2015 10:51

Sorry Needs. My mistake for losing track of the thread.

AllOfTheCoffee · 25/10/2015 10:51

I'm glad some childminders do well out of it. I bet the ones in my town do too, given the lack of spaces with childminders, however the mere thought of all those sticky fingers on my glass coffee table makes me feel ill, it's bad enough my own children touching it, unless I could hand mindees the windex and a glass cloth while looking pointedly at the table, like I do with my own then childminding is not for me.

Like I've said I've considered from time to time, mainly when asked to work 4 weekends in a row because the latest Saturday girl has walk out after having been asked to actually work during her shift but then a particularly irritating child will come in to the shop and start screaming for cake while running around the tables disturbing other customers and I come to my senses.

I really don't know what I'm going to do when the changes come in. If my hours get cut as well as my WTC I won't survive financially, it will be a choice between paying the gas bill or buying food. We're okay, atm financially, but hardly living the life of Riley on TC like some people think. We can pay the bills, eat reasonably well and afford the odd day out here and there. We can't buy designer handbags or go on holiday.

I'm looking for better jobs for a better lifestyle than the one TC currently affords us.

howabout · 25/10/2015 11:18

Allofthecoffee not sure you are even allowed to have a glass coffee table if you are a childminder. I have climbable railings and I think that lets me off the hook. Got my teenager in the kitchen doing make and do with my pre-schooler Grin

Trying to put a positive spin on your situation - as long as you are still working minimum qualifying hours and above basic rate tax a cut in hours might not make as much difference as you fear. You get to keep less than 20% of extra hours. It might make sense for some people to cut their hours if they can save childcare and / or travelling to work costs.

This is why I agree the cuts are punitively driven and I do not see any way anyone who remains in the system will be able to make up their losses.

Looking back at your first post will you be hit by the increase in minimum hours to qualify for WTC? If so you need to look at where you stand in relation to just claiming CTC, which has a different higher income disregard figure (you need someone with better knowledge of the rest of the benefits system than me to look at that).

AllOfTheCoffee · 25/10/2015 11:38

I didn't know they were changing the minimum hours? TBH, it scares me that much I am trying my best to ignore it all.

Babyroobs · 25/10/2015 11:53

AllofThe Coffee. I think once Universal credit is fully up and running, the number of hours you need to work will depend on the age of your youngest child. I think roughly 24 hours if child is school age, and 30 hours if over 12 I think. I can't be exactly certain of the figures.

lavent · 25/10/2015 12:00

I am pretty sure that under UC lone parents can claim for childcare regardless of how many hours they work (currently you must work 16 hours/week) which I think is a good thing.

cruikshank · 25/10/2015 12:00

Well, we will be affected by the cuts. I am a lone parent and while I suppose I officially work 'part-time', I work long days on the four days I'm in, so do 32 hours per week. I guess I'm a scrounger though because I do 3 hours less than someone who is full time, even though when I did work full-time I had breakdown after breakdown resulting in losing my job each time (I have a MH condition). I shell out for childcare on all of those four days and for the bulk of the holidays because unlike a two-parent family if I work I have to pay out childcare and there is no 'juggling' with another person's hours that would give me any leeway at all, which I have done for well over a decade and will continue to do so for a fair few years yet. I have never got the magic 70% of my childcare quoted on these and similar threads paid for. I don't have a child aged 3-4 so the 30 hours childcare a week makes fuck all difference to me. I earn slightly more than the minimum wage so the increase (which incidentally is fuck all compared to what the minimum wage would have been if it had just kept pace with inflation, which it hasn't) again doesn't touch the sides of what we will be losing.

Still, obviously we deserve to suffer, because after all my kids are responsible for their dad leaving us and therefore should pay the price.

What should make you tories all warm inside though is knowing that if I was sat on the dole, I wouldn't be looking at a drop in income. However, as someone who is working near to dammit full time, and the sole provider for my household, I am. Well done. Fucking well done.