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.

Having children is a choice surely?

Good luck, OP. (And I hope you'll be back to address the point that's repeatedly being made.)

@Viviennemary - completely agree with you.

My heart is not bleeding for the person who has to pay for their childcare for a few years while paying their mortgage of £1500 a month also. Big deal.

And no - they shouldn't need or get child benefit either.

And as for them propping up the welfare state - yes, they are. That is the whole point of being taxed.

The threads on here beggar belief - also re VAT on private schools - yes please for that as well. A private school should not have charity status.

Absolutely this. How some people don't get this is beyond me. They'll be the low earners being subsidized by people like her and yet moaning about how much she earns, whilst paying basically fuck all themselves and getting everything free. Ridiculous.

They are paying fuck all as you so charmingly put it - because they are earning a tenth of that wage.

'Earning' being the key word here. Not given. They earn their wage

This I have a problem with as it insinuates that those on 12k do not work hard or have stressful jobs.

Nobody "enjoys" relying on the welfare state. I have for 15 years and I work full time and I earn £24k currently. I'd far rather swap and be earning £100k.

I also have a problem when people say higher earners are "propping up" the rest of us. Well, so are the lower earners, including those childcare workers that the higher earners are paying to look after their children. If they decided to stop going to work, if the refuse collectors and care home workers and supermarket workers decided to stop going to work then the higher earners and the entire country would be in a bit of a mess, wouldn't it. All jobs are important, that's why they are there.

Saying all that, I do think all childcare should be free no matter what you earn. I'd rather pay for this via tax than a lot of the other things.

Would love to know what I get for free as a low earner? I don't have any childcare costs, please tell me?

Isn't it the way the threshold is calculated rather than the threshold itself which is the problem?

A single earner family loses their entitlement at £100k whereas a dual earner family earning just under £200k, assuming neither partner earns more than £100k, is fine.

At £100k, you start to lose your personal allowance. I'm dreadful at maths, but if you're also losing your childcare entitlement, then what this essentially means is that there is a "black hole" where you are worse off, not better off, if your earn between £100k and around £150k.

Many people are changing their behaviour to avoid this by paying more into their pensions, working less hours or cutting their responsibilities at work. This reduces the overall tax paid and disincentivises parents from progressing at work. It's absolutely crazy!

And as people have pointed out, a single £100k earner could find that their salary didn't cover childcare for 2 kids and a mortgage on a reasonable size home.

It's difficult to believe that if someone had said, "I know what, let's design a really terrible system of funding childcare", that they could have come up with something more illogical than this.

@leafybrew the VAT issue is not comparable. Parents are choosing to pay for private education when their children can access state education.

Why should working parents who pay their taxes be expected to forgo all benefits? This is part of the reason that high earners (I’m not talking about the wealthy here) are so resistant to paying more tax. In other European countries, the tax rates are much higher and high earners are less likely to complain because they are also benefiting from state provision.

Health care free at the point of acsess springs instantly to mind ; roads, police, refuse collection, parks, libaries - I'm sure I can think of some more.....

The effective tax rate on earnings between 100k & 125k is 65% in Scotland. You keep 35%.
It's little incentive to work harder.
Whoever said higher earners are subsidising far more than their fair share is spot on.

I have posted this before, but the marginal tax rate for someone with children can be up to 80% and that is before the free childcare is taken into account. Jeremy Hunt needs to sort this out urgently.

High earners get all of that too?

And I'm pretty sure council tax pays for most of that. Which I pay.

If you say so. Healthcare is phenomenally expensive most people are net contribtors until the last 2 years of their lives. Not sure what relveance higher earners have.

Not really understanding what you're saying here. I was asking the PP who said low earners get free stuff exactly what that stuff was. You said health care at the point of use, but everyone gets that in this country no matter what they earn.

They do but people on £100k are net contributors rather than net beneficiaries. Don’t attack the people who are actually paying for the public services that everyone receives.

Where did I attack them in my post?

Nobody should be attacking anybody, I don't automatically think net contributors are better people than lower earners though. The jobs lower earners do are necessary for a functioning society.

Agree!

95% of the working population earn less than they do, by a good margin. They earn 3x the average income, and £30k more than a couple on the average income

and yet wants the same subsidies that those on less receive

would it be better to cap her wages at £60k and give her the subsidies?

Maybe look at why someone earning NMW full time is receiving subsidies, instead of wages high enough to pay the bills without them

YANBU but this is mumsnet and plenty of people are going to disagree with you.

our combined income is 56k and we get sweet fuck all in help apart from 30 hours childcare from 3 and child benefit just like anyone else. We live in one of the most expensive areas in the country. We make it work by budgeting, no big holidays etc.. we don’t live in a massive house because we went for location over size… and yes we pay for childcare

I am sick of the double standard in telling average/lower earners to live within their means but somehow people on a very good wage are allowed to complain about things being too expensive.

You asked what you got for free as a lower earner. That’s something I see regularly on here with many people seeming completely oblivious to the fact that they won’t contribute enough tax to reflect what they will take out over the course of their life. And yes, some jobs done by lower earners are necessary for a functioning society but that’s not always the case.