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.

But in the long term they own an expensive house outright and get a nice comfortable pension. Their money shortage is generally short term. Those on low incomes are likely to be poor for life.

People on low salaries do get free childcare, or more or less free in any case. They receive the funding and top it up with Universal Credit. Families on Universal Credit end up paying about £100 a month.

None of them look to be struggling to me. They all go on nice holidays two or three times a year, which is more than I can afford to do.

Someone working part time may be working hard but obviously someone else doing the exact same job full time is working harder no?

And actually if your household income is below approx £30k, you get free hours from age 2 (rightly so). The very new changes to childcare may have opened this to more people though.

Look, clearly, those who earn less deserve more help and as a society we should facilitate that. But everyone agrees early years childcare costs are astronomical and even people on £100k feel the bite. They also lose childcare benefit from £50k yet lay the most into the pot everyone else benefits from. And you can say they dont have to and should just take low earning jobs instead - if they did, we would all be scuppered and that is a fact.

No dog in the race as my kids are past this stage but from a societal perspective, we should be funding cheap, high quality childcare for all. People constantly quote the scandinavian countries on here - they pay higher taxes but guess what, there are almost no stay at home mums beyond age 1 and everyone has access to paid maternity leave for 1 year and cheap childcare from age 1.

The alternative is divisive and helps no one

For those against those earning more than average, can you please just read this and how those of higher salaries are struggling?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/20/uk-middle-classes-jobs-housing-costs-abrdn-financial-fairness-trust

Absolutely this ^^

While many of the 6 figure salary workers deserve their money and work hard - we all know many on the public payroll who add very little of value.

Goodness! You work in childcare and you don't know about these companies?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/aug/04/childcare-sector-england-not-playground-private-equity-experts-say

☝️ this.
I'm sure you have many legitimate reasons for not earning more.

Okay agreed, but it is the scenario in the OP.

It is the issue though judging everything on household income, there is always people popping up with ‘what’s the impact on one-income families’. There is choice involved in that.

That said I imagine anyone with children if possible would surely do their best to stay under 100k - maxing out pensions, dropping hours etc. there’s also loss of personal allowance at that level.

Precisely this. In healthcare and know alot of doctors who are doing this. So less appointments at a time with huge waitlists nationally but they have families to look after. It makes no sense to have such a cliff edge system

"With two kids in full time childcare she could also work, so their income would be a lot more than that. "

Isn't she a working single parent?

Having an under-two at nursery full-time costs close to £300 a week, according to data from the Department for Education. Childminders are a cheaper option, costing on average 16% less than nurseries.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2023/nov/06/how-much-does-it-cost-for-you-to-raise-a-child (November 2023)

@ZebraPensAreLife
I looked up how much childcare for 2 children would be in my local area, and how much the mortgage would be for a fairly basic 3-bed house. The total comes to £5,680. So before council tax, other bills or food the person’s already at minus £30 for the month.

say £3k (£2.5ish) for 2 dc - how big is the mortgage you're looking at here?? you're budgeting around £2700 on a mortgage for a 3 bed house ?

@MalvernValentine

Imagine being thick enough to berate the hand that feeds when you are net better off than the very people that subsidise you.

This, with bells on. So you do realise @Viviennemary that a higher rate taxpayer will be subsidising the nursery fees of the person on the 12k per annum income? Place your anger where it counts - it's the wider economic and political system that's wrong, facilitating a means by which only 5% of the country's population (the richest people) retain more land and wealth than anyone else.

But in this example, where the OP has mocked a woman who is genuinely struggling and it erupted into an us Vs them, during the childcare years it is unfair. As this woman is mocked for highlighting.

Low paid workers are the backbone of this country, I wholly support a system that helps all people to live a better quality of life.

I disagree with mocking someone who is in all factuality struggling, because others "have it worse". Especially when their contribution to society is as integral as the low paid workers employment.

God knows what sacrifices that family made to be high earning. In my experience, they've done things that others can't or won't do.

41K is the level of earnings needed to be considered a net contributor.
That means everyone earning more than that is subsidising the service cost of those earning less.
Childcare and such should be a universal benefit.

But the rest of the system doesn't back this up. CMS payments for example do not work to the same thresholds. So if this were to be true then you'd need to make sure everything was aligned.
And as you said, doesn't account for truly single parent households where there is no other parent for whatever reason

This statement is bonkers and so short sighted, and also shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how economies work.

Children are not mandatory, but if you want to keep the NHS, police, schools and other public services going, we need people to continue to have children. We are already well below replacement rate.

A very nasty tone to your post - calling those who disagree - ignorant, under-educated and thick.

Someone on an average wage is not net better off if you ignore child care costs which are not the be all and end all of living costs (only for a few years at best. )

People on average wages have ALL the other same costs - council tax, food etc as these rich couples with their 6 figure salaries. Not everybody who earns less is automatically on UC

Yes but those things need to be paid for somehow. And those who 'chase money' as you term it pay more taxes to allow the state to be in a position to pay you those benefits. Trust me, there are many countries where that is not the case.

So anyone making a honest living is contributing to society and that includes those making over £100k and deserve support too. It doesnt work one way!

Income tax makes up a quarter of all government revenue and less than a third of tax revenue. So I'm not sure of your maths there.

It costs the UK £106.2 billion a year more than the average OECD economy to subsidise the cost of structural inequality in favour of the rich. This translates to a £128 billion a year in damage to the economy, communities & individuals.

That's unsustainable.

The father of her children should be paying.

Opposed to the delightful tone of the poster I replied to. The post was about a woman who was struggling with childcare. So factoring out childcare isn't what the post is about? It is ignorance to ignore facts. Nasty, unlikely. Just true.

It really should be free childcare for everyone for 3 years. We have enough money to subsidise parliment MPs food and drinks, immigration and warfare. Why not take some out of their budgets?!

In they end they own a home that they have to pay to maintain, have higher energy bills and council tax and can be sold to pay for nursing home care.

On the other hand, why would anyone bother earning 100k if they are still stuck in a tiny house with much of their pay taken away in tax with no benefits making their lifestyle much worse off than someone who earns much less, but gets lots of useful benefits from the government?

1. How are the rich subsidised.?
2. Assume you have some data on this ? Where from? I’d be interested to have a further read.

Income tax and NI are almost 50% of the tax revenue. The bulk of that coming from higher earners. Break down attached

We clearly need to raise more from large companies in terms of corporation taxes. There is no denying the significant contribution income tax + NI make to government revenue.

But her situation is a bit of a moot point anyway as if she is living eith her husband then both parties need to be working regardless of income