To be irritated by this £100k a year whiner

[Viviennemary]

On Question Time tonight they were talking about subsidised childcare and the new benefits for younger children. Then a woman came on with a boo hoo sad face and said she wouldn't be getting it. So I think Fiona Bruce said because your income is £100k a year plus Then she said that it wasnt fair as there was only one wage. And their household only had one earner.

Well tough. Folk on just over £12k a year are paying tax and this cheeky woman thinks her child care should be subsidised. It made me mad.

Agreed.

I never understand people who say 'I am struggling and by the way I make 80K or 100K'....These people have no clue of what it means to struggle.

Then you read so many stories here about people who have been pushed to the limit by the cost of living talking about how they have no money in the bank and how they are worried about food and you just want the above fools to keep quiet and count their blessings.

''@MississippiAF

A person earning 100k a year is subsidising a person earning 12k a year.''

Yet another smug comment...with your logic my taxes as someone who works part time because of disability and make about 30K is also subsidising the person who earns 50 - 100K's subsidised childcare...

£12k a year is 20 hours a week at the minimum wage FYI.

Exactly this. It's galling that people don't understand this.

Well we had to pay extraordinarily high childcare on a joint income of nowhere near 100k in one of the most expensive cities a few years ago before free hours for 1 and 2 year olds were even mentioned... Yes we got tax free childcare for a bit but still had to change our working hours and lifestyle. For a while our outgoings were more than our incomings. And yet we somehow survived. I'm sure those earning 100k can put aside some £ before having children to allow for this extra expense. I'm more concerned about those struggling to eat.

I don't, i can't afford it. With my first one I had to quit my job, then eventually got one working weekends. With my second I got a job working evenings and weekends, so my partner finishes work at 5pm and takes over from me, I start at 6pm and work till 11pm on weekdays and whatever shifts are available weekends. Since you asked. It's not ideal but I'm doing what I have to, and yes I fully appreciate having a partner. If I was a single parent I would likely be unemployed.

Just an edit to add, I live in a home county (not a cheap area)

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that if you live in the South East, you can easily pay £5k a month in mortgage and childcare costs, with no real option to make them cheaper? That is why people on “good” salaries are struggling, not because they are spending their salary on Pol Roger.

Because they're very invested in not understanding it.

It's not that hard, terraced houses on my very average suburban street are about 650k and childcare costs comparative to London, I'm not in the South East either by the way so you don't have the monopoly on expensive living. We work incredibly hard for above average salaries (but still way, way under 100k) and still have little left at the end of the month.

The thing is re childcare costs, it's a temporary issue and you're still much better off at the end of it. Otherwise you'd move or get lower paid jobs, surely?

Realise that earning 135k or whatever might not feel like a lot while you're paying double childcare, but once you're not paying it you'll reap the benefits.

Thank you, I know. My job, like many others in admin or childcare roles, falls into that category.

Except that actually their tax is going to the last generation's pensions, so they can have five cruises a year and eat out every day while complaining they have it so hard and they worked hard to buy their cheap as chips houses and paid their shillings into the system so they're entitled to live like millionaires now they've retired.

Pension costs are the highest part of the welfare budget. By far.

On 60k you would take home £3716. To not receive any child benefit at all they can't be contributing anything to a pension and the majority of people on 60k won't still be repaying a student loan.
The person on 40k would be taking home £2647 assuming also no pension. If they were contributing to a pension at say 9%, they'd still be taking home £2437.
That comes to at least £6153, probably more than that.
If they are still paying that much childcare even with 30 free hours, maybe they should look at other options. Full time (40 hours a week) childcare for one, plus topping up from 30 hours a week for the other, cost me £1040 a month after TFC (in London).
We had this exact income and exact same mortgage costs plus 2 young children and I can tell you things weren't even close to tight.

👏🏽👏🏽 absolutely this!

Also, people are really forgetting or not understanding how expensive everything has suddenly become too.

~£1.5k per child for a full time place
~£1.5k Mortgage on a 3 bed house (completely underestimating here as a 3 bed house in my part of East London is around £700k)
~£1000 for all other bills

That’s £4k a month on essentials and not factoring in the cost of another child in childcare.

£100k doesn’t £100k like it did 10 years ago.

Or you might go for option three, work less and thus pay less into the Exchequer during the period where you'd otherwise end up with a 100% effective tax rate. Which is a solution that has wider repercussions if enough people do it.

Yes - this is how taxation works

The majority of people on 60k won't still be repaying a student loan.

Is there evidence for that @updownleftrightstart? I suppose the ones old enough to have gone before loans came in won't be, but presumably that group is also less likely to still have childcare costs as well.

@Porridgeislife you are quite right - all sorts of anomalies in the tax system, and that leads to situations that are not fair.

Plus anyone who says don’t have children if you can’t afford it an arsehole. No exceptions.

Well that's exactly what we did. We both went part time. The cost of childcare vs our salaries was negligible and we wanted to spend more time with our children.

How about people on 100k do the same, go to 80%, and that will then solve all their problems by the sounds of it, and be on a similar wage to our combined one when we were paying two lots of childcare.

How long ago was it since you’ve had small children in nursery?

Nursery places have gone up astonishingly over the last few years.

Someone earning £60k most certainly could be paying a student loan - have you seen the cost of uni today / interest rates? Those with plan 2 loans will be paying it off for their entire career at that income level.

£60k less 5% pension and a plan 2 student loan is £3,322.

£40k less 5% pension and a plan 2 student loan is £2,419

This is £5,741 a month.

When were you paying childcare in London and what were your exact costs? Because I don't know anyone paying anything close to £1,040 for two children in full-time childcare in London. For context, 30 free hours at my nursery is £1,600 a month - 1,433 a month including tax free childcare. For one.

BCBird,as far as I am concerned,it's the parents responsibility. My DKs,40s,50s. I didn't get free childcare. I was nursing,exH was a Horologist,trained in Switzerland. Redundancy,ended up as a milkman many years. He started at 3am so I could then go to work. Second DH I worked nights to his days. Maternity leave was just 3 months after birth. There was no holidays or takeaways. He got made redundant 5 times in 8 years. My DKs shared a bedroom when they were younger.

@Viviennemaryo put this into perspective, that persons partner earning £100k will be paying £33k a year in income tax to pay for the person on £12k a years benefits, healthcare, education their children have and child care their children have. If she had access to affordable - or god forbid free - childcare the woman with the £100k a year partner may actually be able to work herself and in future pay even more in tax to support the person on £12k.

This is a nasty, sneaky, judgemental and also shamefully incorrect framing. This is not how tax works.

On a personal level that's what I'd do in their shoes, and indeed it's how my household have always dealt with bottlenecks.

But speaking as a member of society I'm rather concerned about the reduced amount in the pot and potential impact on services I need if they all do it. I'd much rather we had a system where nobody was ever presented with such substantial disincentives, whatever they earned. Especially not in a country where we have a worker shortage.

@Beezknees

"...it insinuates that those on 12k do not work hard or have stressful jobs."

Stressful maybe, but personally I wouldn't regard a 22hr week (that's what it divides into at minimum wage) as working hard. Positively fucking sedentary that is! I averaged 55hrs a week for fifteen years up until redundancy last year, I'd say THAT was working hard. And it was a stressful job too. (And the max I ever earned was £12.35ph so I'm not a £100k whiner either!)

When did you have children in nursery? I have one in an east London nursery at the moment and we pay £1505 a month for a full time place. We don’t get any “free” hours yet, but nursery costs all around us have gone up an additional £200 a month.

Yeah I see your point.