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.

Never said that they could but many people want the top earners of £100k plus to pay more tax when many of them already have effective tax rates of 60% or more, which is far higher than the much talked about Scandinavian countries (where those top earners would also get access to highly subsidised childcare).

Gordon Brown has a lot to answer for in my opinion with regards to responsibility for wage stagnation.

100% this. All of this also disproportionately affects women, while the government then has whole departments spending our money and scratching their head over the gender pay gap.

Why compare Uk to third world countries- not Scandinavia/Baltics etc- where there is paid maternity leave for up to 3 years (mum gets salary equal to what he earned at work, not peanuts like in the UK), where nursery costs about 50 Eur (40 pounds a month) for full time- and you can choose if you want to take your kid in or not,maybe want to have a family day out instead, parents jobs must be kept open for up to 3 years for the parent on paternity leave, free universities,free healthcare etc.

UK is so backward, you really need to get out of the UK and stop listening to tour government telling you how great you got it and you need to be thankful for it- UK is a these days, the roads are worse than in ukraine , even playgrounds are trashed, everything is outdated etc- yet the government is still dreaming of some victorian era colonial superpower,, the money is running out and it shows everywhere, including the NHS. The government does find money for its people but there is always a money tree for the wars

I think that is hard if you are a single parent.
If you are a single income household with a parent at home, it's a decision to make as to whether to pay before early years education starts.

Also the £100k was introduced years ago and would be closer to £130k if it had increased with inflation. Why is £100k the right number? If it never moves then even average earners will be hit eventually with fiscal drag.

Yes, this is a complete con that is throughout the tax system and is a way of silently raising taxes constantly - they keep not moving the thresholds. At the point this was first set £100k was a much more 'extraordinary' salary than it is now.

Absolutely agree with the woman on 100k. It’s massively unfair.

Yeah it’s not fair tbh, I think middle to higher earners are getting an utter kicking tbh.

And yeah theres no point getting offended by the fact that net contributors are subbing those who are not net contributors. It’s a fact and in a decent society it should be the case that we share some of what we have with our neighbours. The problem is when your pockets are getting a bit empty and your neighbour is telling you you need to cough up even more and calls you a whingey twat for raising any objections. It’s understandable people start asking what they are getting back themselves.

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

I agree. There are full time employees at my job retiring on under 30k a year (probably myself included one day) some have worked there their whole lives. If some people didn't earn a low wage more senior staff in the same company could not be paid what they earn. If wages weren't so low we could pay more tax, which I would be happy to in order to contribute to a better society.

What if you are a single parent. Who chooses then?
I'm a single parent and earn over that threshold. I accept that I pay tax and I'm happy to do so.
It's the unfairness that's the issue. 2 x parents who earn 99k each get help that one parent who earns 100k doesn't. Makes no sense.
If we want to remove free childcare from high earners, then that's fine and I can understand the arguments for that. But you're either a wealthy household or you are not.
Anyone who argues that a single salary of 100k should have no childcare but 2 salaries of 99k should is mad IMHO

I am an average earner in one of the most expensive cities in the country, with young children. So I do have quite a good idea thank you.

my point is, if you think of it this way: if you pay your income tax on £100k a year you are still going home with just under £68k, that is significantly higher than a lot of salaries across the uk and people ignore that.

I get that it’s frustrating paying a large amount of tax. But it needs cutting off somewhere. Perhaps this could be adjusted if undervalued jobs were paid better and then everyone’s tax could be adjusted to pay a more average amount across the board. But they aren’t right now.

and again - don’t have children you can’t afford goes for everyone not just the lower earners surely?

My heart bleeds. 🙄

There's also an absolute cliff edge at that point where you can actually be worse off by earning more.

Let her work less, then.

I agree. In any case the one earner/two earner household argument doesn't wash with me. Two earners going to work are two people. And where is the other parent? Why aren't they contributing. Quite prepared to help single parents on low wages. But on £100k a year - at least three times the average wage just why.

And just mention benefits for pensioners on here. The amount of income to qualify for pension credit is absolutely miniscule. So subsidies for folk on £100k is ludicrous. I don't want lower taxes. But I don't want childcare subsidies for rich folk either.

The problem is that a system like this can't deal with "real life", it can only deal with the "average" situation. So the average person earning 100k will be married to someone else earning a salary or being a SAHP (who then doesn't supposedly need childcare - let's not even get into that argument).

I've had the argument before that when my kids were small we were "winners" in terms of child benefit, as we were both just under the threshold. But we also had no relatives nearby and childcare was a fortune. No system can factor in all the different scenarios to work out whether things are fair or not. If the lady on QT had an ex partner earning a million a year, then I doubt many people would be feeling sorry for her for example.

As someone else said, it's not a race to the bottom. Personally I'd make it universal and see the wider benefits as being helpful for everyone.

In response to the 'don't have children you can't afford' people regularly say on benefits threads that no one knows what the future will hold. Households who could afford to have children may have disability /divorce/ death / other circumstances which mean it isn't affordable any more.

Does that only apply to lower earners?

It is a problem for the country if people drop hours/ refuse pay rises / up pension contributions to avoid entering a new tax band.

This is what I earn and frankly, for years I paid a shit tonne of childcare.
I also pay enough tax that I am subsidising people either not paying tax or paying little who receive free childcare so I understand the whining. I am lucky to be a net contributor but a lot of people complaining about what little they get are almost certainly NOT net contributors.

Unfortunately a child does not necessarily have another living parent. Bereavement support is another thread, but as with Child Benefit, this kind of tax and benefit rule is very blunt and doesn’t account for reasons why another parent may not just be stepping in to provide support.

@Emotionalsupportviper

So for example she is a GP and decides to work less. Perfectly fine. That means fewer GP appointments, more delays, potentially more people signed off sick for longer while they wait for appointments.

If people doing those jobs drop a day there isn't a job available for someone else to do, there is just a reduction in hours for them and a reduction in tax take for the country.

So here goes…

This is a mothers issue and, I wonder if it was a fathers issue, there might be a proposal which was equitable.

Just think about who they are pitting against each other vs who should be upset. This isn’t high vs low income. This is man cs woman. How dare the men in charge make it harder than it already is for women to progress in the workplace.

@Ελλe and again - don’t have children you can’t afford goes for everyone not just the lower earners surely?

Its a bit different when you can’t afford to have your own children but have to pay a significant amount of your salary to pay for others on lower earnings to have children.

Childcare costs are insane, yes. And you'd think with a 100k earner you should be well off.

But your calculations are a bit misleading. With two kids in full time childcare she could also work, so their income would be a lot more than that. Otherwise why put two children in full time childcare?

Also it's for a max two years usually that you'll be paying full fees for two, and that's if you had twins (assuming you took full mat leave) - between age 1 and 3 - 3.5.

Assuming that most people have 18 months between DC - or, like me, left a 3 year gap in order not to have this financial pressure - you're paying both for max 1 year.

For those saying that higher earners should pay more tax…they do, that’s how percentages work. It’s also impossible in our system to tax a household income so that would take considerable change. My tax record is not linked in any way to that of my husband. At what point should someone’s household income be linked? When they marry? When they have children? What if they split and have separate households? What about that of housemates? What if someone lives with multiple generations?

I’m a liberal leftie. I think we should all pay more so we can all access the same, high quality services. I believe that’s how a fair society is built and maintained.

Yes that’s why i said it’s an odd policy!

I agree a single-parent situation should also be assessed differently if there isn’t an option for a second parent income.

I didn’t see the show but if the woman was the sole earner because her partner was around but chose not work, then I don’t think she can moan.

See the thing is, you DO get help that does not fit the description ‘just like everyone else’.

You get 30 hours funded childcare, which not everyone gets. You almost certainly also qualify for tax free childcare too.

You also get child benefit - full child benefit - which not everyone gets. In fact, an earner household with the same income as you doesn’t even get that.

Rather than thinking ‘they have more than me; they should just budget better, the feckless arses’, it’s a good idea to think of the unfairness in the poorly designed system. And also consider that people may not be doing as well as you are imagining once you factor in their costs.

Loads of people on this thread have explained the effects of not qualifying for childcare support. But some people really are only interested in dismissing people.

People always talk about Sweden and the high taxes. But the difference is actually that lower earners in Sweden pay far more tax. The differences at higher incomes aren’t as big - and things like properly subsidised childcare make a big difference despite the 52% tax rate on earnings over the threshold. Given part of this OP’s
whinge is that people on £12k pay income tax in the uk (they don’t - the personal allowance is higher than that), she’d be horrified at how low the threshold for paying tax is in Sweden.

Absolutely @SellFridges. Added to which women my age fought hard for women to achieve financial autonomy, it’s very sad to see people wanting to go backwards.

All of this. I have no problem with people paying tax proportionate to what they earn. I think society as a whole has a duty to make sure that everyone enjoys a decent standard of living. I also wouldn’t mind if there were higher taxes if there were proper benefits, but those benefits must be available to all.