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.

The problems arise when, as in the case of Child Benefit, one family has one earner who earns above the cut off point (I think it's around £60k) but other families get the benefit when they have 2 earners on just below the cut off, so for example both on around 55k, so earning 110k between 2 parents, and they still get it.

The system isn't awfully fair, IMO. It does need to be looked at.

Clueless comment. Most jobs paying £100k would not allow for 'dropping a couple of days'

Precisely this - in bucket loads! Everybody pays in, every one works unless they are unable to. Less than 10% of mums with kids above 1 are stay at home mums in Sweden versus closer to 30% in the UK. But mat leave is paid for 1 year and childcare is accessible and affordable for all. Tax levels are higher for all too. Now that is fair

Lots of lower paid people are getting up for work everyday and not getting anything back too.

Yes I agree. I'm on nowhere near 100k by the way but people who work full time should get help too. Someone on 12k is not working full time.

The ind rev was mentioned and you responded with non relevant info on the ind rev which was completely missing the point re why the poster mentioned it in the first place. It’s just comprehension
Just as your points to others here have spectacularly missed the point at every turn.
Its seems like they can’t be bothered to engage with the derailing anymore as it’s just so exhausting dealing with such comments that ( I’ll say it again) just constantly miss the point.

Yes- from this perspective I can totally see how she feels it is discrimination against her for essentially being a single parent. I can see why she’s whining.

The problem with the uk is not other citizens whining- it’s the government policies that put all mothers at a disadvantage with a shit CMS service and total lack of decent childcare funding.

Precisely - they absolutely have to. And pay for private education and healthcare and whatever their funds will allow them access to since they dont even have access to support that everyone else does, despite predominantly funding those things!

Exactly

This. It is incredibly unfair for single parent families.

I agree with your argument about the lower earning being pushed to either go part-time or becoming a SAHP. I’m just not sure how it could be prevented.

If both incomes were to be considered, there would be couples with precisely the same issue: if person A works FT as well well we’ll be above the threshold. But if person a works PT we’ll be below the threshold. It might make the issue even worse for them, seeing as not working / PT could potentially have a direct financial benefit regarding childcare.

Child benefit and childcare costs should be universal - and paid through taxation.

Earning £100,000 means you pay for the benefits of others and get none yourself.
It's not a good system.

Exactly this! It's not right that two ppl in household can each earn £70k but if one earns £100k then no benefit.
On her salary she'll be paying so much tax.
Just because she has a high salary it doesn't mean she's rich once you factor in tax, mortgage, childcare etc.

Everyone says this but in reality it's not hugely different from UK tax rate. The Tax calculators are there on their tax office websites. I was sharing this information on Finland and Sweden the other day on this forum and a poster was still arguing despite being presented with the calculators from the tax office.

You also get a huge amount of tax relief for people you employ to do work for you in your home like nannies/ babysitters, plumbers, electrician, house extensions/ renovations etc - once you add that you are actually even better off than the UK and potentially paying less tax.

To be fair the people earning 100k plus are also relying on the services provided by people on a low wage.

It also doesn't really matter if some have 'no interest in bettering themselves', if everyone had the same drive and skills to achieve it would be impossible for everyone to be on 100k or more a year because most of the low paid jobs would still need to be done.

Exactly. This paying hand not only pays taxes but also directly for cleaner, nursery worker and coffee servant jobs. If they decide enough is enough, there won't be both tax and jobs
Yes, be careful

I don't quite get this.

First off I wasn't bashing the person who has no interest in bettering themselves. But it's true that some of these people exist and fair play to them - they still have the lifestyle they have because other people contribute to that lifestyle. If lower paid people are paid by better paid people to do things then that is a perfectly valid economic transaction. I get paid, they get a service. I am not sure what exactly they get in return from me if there is just a transfer of income from them to me through the tax system. Unless you think that they don't deserve to get paid more than me, which may or may not be the case. But if I choose not to improve my human capital or work more hours or change job, it is probably likely that there will be someone who earns over £100k who did make those choices and now has to subsidise me.

If you think about your second point it does not really make a lot of sense (I don't want to be mean but I can't think of a better way to phrase this). If everyone was enabled and chose to make decisions that maximised their economic opportunities, there would be more engineers and businesses creating tools and machines to remove the need for low paid jobs, more doctors, more money to pay the doctors, more money to pay the low skilled jobs that that still needed to be done. That is the history of economic growth.

We probably agree that how the proceeds of growth have been distributed could have been done a lot better, or that economic growth is not the only (or even the) thing that a society should be aiming for. But it would be strange to argue that the enablement through education and investment in technology that we as a society have undertaken for quite a few generations now has not resulted in higher living standards for everyone, whilst also removing the requirement for a lot of low skilled jobs, did not happen.

If everyone (who can) tries to better themselves or work harder, we are, on the whole, all better off.

Most senior level jobs (which I assume hers is) don’t allow any kind of part time working. Back when I was on that kind of salary, I desperately wanted to drop to 4.5 days a week whilst my Dd was at nursery, just so I’d get to see her sometimes, and was told absolutely no way. And again, in these kinds of jobs your FT hours are less than you actually work. Contracted for 35 hours a week = working 60+ usually.

It’s really not .

We are at risk of developing a very odd tax system where we have personal allowances for some areas and household allowances for others. We don't file tax returns as a household. It should be a personal allowance for child benefit and for childcare

It's a bit of a straw man argument for people to state that those who have a problem with the current tax situation have a problem with working class workers e.g. cleaners/ hair dressers etc. The reality is that those with a higher salary respect anyone who is working and providing good services for the country. People have no issue with any hard-working family from accessing these services, if they are entitled to them. The problem is actually that everyone that is working needs universal access to things like free childcare and tax credits... it's not fair for those on higher salaries to pay a lot into a system and receive punitive measures back. This is the root cause of the issue. The problem is not with workers on lower salaries! Either everyone who is working should be entitled to this help, or no one should get it.

Again, wealth inequality is relevant to the OP and their disgruntled rant as they are wrongly defining 'wealth' as £100000 of income from a job. They're causing people to pit against one another which is terribly convenient for those that really are 'wealthy' as they are then overlooked. People on the £100000 of the spectrum feeling hard done by, rightly so, others at the other end in disbelief that they are complaining about their high end living on £100000 salary. Meanwhile those sitting pretty on multi million assets are not scrutinised one bit, their wealth doesn't trickle down and they just keep accumulating more and more. If you can get most of the population pitting against each other you can then play on this for political wins - tax cuts anyone, let's leave wealth alone though. You are being completely disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Name me one job that doesn’t allow part time workers.

A good example is a corporate lawyer in a city firm (my job). Really doesn't lend itself to part time. And can be very long hours.

Sorry you're going to have to be more specific about wtf you're actually trying to say here.

What is Tory about acknowledging that it is easier for people earning more to work round their spends than it is for those earning much less? Or did I hit some Bingo point by picking the only expensive car I could think of?

pardon me?the NHS and State Education are available to all, no?

OP, yes that woman really annoyed me last night! So entitled and out of touch!