To be angry about the new "free" nursery hours

[pimlicopubber]

We're not eligible for the new "free" hours starting at 9 months, because my husband is lucky enough to be earning over 100k. However, I earn far from that, so 2 sets of nursery fees are more than my salary. We live in London with 2 small children.

We are comfortable, but don't splash out, we shop at Aldi and don't own a car. Our salaries basically evaporate after paying rent and nursery fees, yet the government is treating us like we are the Kardashians when it comes to the marginal tax rate.

As a result of the "free" hours that don't actually cover nursery costs, our nursery increased fees for everyone, because they need to cross-subsidize the free hours. Also, the ratio of caregivers dropped from 1:4 to 1:5 and we can't move to a slightly cheaper nursery further away, because they have incredibly long waiting lists due to the huge demand. I'm thinking of quitting work, even though it will be damaging to my career in the long term.

AIBU to be disappointed and angry that a policy that was supposed to motivate people to work has an opposite effect for our family?

Absolutely agree with you, it should be based on household income. If there has to be a cut off then it is unfair that you can effectively have a household income of just under £200k that qualifies but have another household just over £100k that doesn’t.

Yes perhaps it does fit my narrative. But I did take from the ops post that she appeared aggrieved that she is now subsidising childcare for others. Perhaps this is due to the fact that despite earning nowhere near £100k I don’t qualify for free childcare due to the fact that my dh is unable to work due to a chronic illness following a traumatic injury. I accept that we don’t qualify for childcare but I do have issues with the fact that my fees have now increased to subsidise the free childcare for others. I have no issue that they are entitled to this and should claim it. However, if the government are going to offer free childcare then I do think they should fund it and not expect it to be subsidised by mine and others already stretched budgets.

But if he's earning £100k and she's earning, say, £20k, that's £120k total. My hudband and I are on around that and even with 'free' hours, we could barely make ends meet. Compare that to a family where each parent is on £95k! It is messed up.

I earn £7000 a year. Cry me a river OP.

The free nursery places are an incentive forpeople on low incomes to get back into work and not rely on the state benefit system-it’s
not for people earning over 6k a month after tax
It’s saving the government a lot more money than having to pay out benefits to people who have to stay on universal credit for five years when kids start going to school because they can’t afford childcare
I earnt 26K and had to pay almost 900 a month in nursery fees when I had my DD a few years ago and although it was VERY tough I managed and we both got to eat I don’t see why you can’t do the same on that kind of salary
find a community nursery where other mums on low incomes take their kids ( the nurseries are just as good as private ones ) rent somewhere cheaper , reduce expenses and in 5 years time ( providing your children are going to a state school) you will be in a better financial position

The less well off don't pay for f all let alone subsiding families like op. It's the 100k ppl paying for the less well off actually as ops post proves. We are on just under 100k . It' means jack shit. It just means I personally pay all my bills not the government and believe after all the bills and tax bill is paid there's nothing left. The recent mortgage hike made sure of that!

@Banana1979 if the nursery hours are exclusively an incentive for low earning people to work, why are you eligible for them on incomes up to £100k?

Breakdown of your expenses paying £900 a month childcare on £26k income and no support plz.

It's not - if you're paying student loan and a small pension contribution it's less than £5k. If you have £2.5k on mortgage (pretty modest for London) plus £2k on nursery that's nearly it all gone. And that's before all other bills, transport, food etc.

Well maybe you should complain about the government then who isn't properly funding these 'free' nursery hours then. If they actually funded them fully your nursery wouldn't have to charge you more to make up the difference would they.

This.

Suck it up, it won't be forever!

what nonsense I am on £39 000 p year inc London weighting I pay my national insurance contributions and taxes
I object to you stating in the less well off pay for Jack shit -everybody who earns a salary pays in
good luck to you that you are on almost a hundred thousand pound thousand a year if you don’t like it get a job where you’re paid less. That you took out a mortgage beyond your means us your own fault

and OP should have done some financial planning before deciding to have a child / a second child

Not sure wuite why me posting in a thread I happened upon and then replying to people who quote me confuses you. I’m off now. If you (and others) don’t quote me I’ll stay away permanently, but if I’m quoted and challenged I’m going to respond. Amd I fully understand the issues. I just disagree with your view of them - possibly not by that much, but you are very aggressively challenging without really listening.

It seems very odd that it's based on one earner and not household income, but not the earner who would otherwise need to give up their job to care for children.

We are in the USA. Normally all tax here is based on household income. The childcare tax credit eligibility is based on household income, however it's capped based on the tax owed on the lower of the two incomes (so you can only claim it if both people are working). There's also a phased drop off for high earners not a cliff.

Normally I think the tax system here is pretty broken but this way of doing childcare tax credit seems a lot better than the uk.

Where are you finding this day care in central
London for less than 2k? Please do share it with us!

Except it’s not “all gone” though because that only accounts for one salary. Presumably the other parent works full time hence the need for a full time nursery place and suddenly there is a considerably chunk more added to that.

Yup it’s madness. My DP also earns >£100k me less so. I earn £60k my net won’t cover nursery for 2 children. I will opt to keep working as I’ll be much happier doing so but this policy is quite unfair on women who will be disproportionately the lower paid and thus likely to drop out

I’m not being funny but your child won’t be in nursery forever will they?

What are you classing as central london?
I live on the border of zone 2/3. I personally don’t know anyone who has a family in zone 1 and if they do they surely can’t complain about costs?
A full time non funded place is 1.5k at my nursery, locally they are mostly similar plus or minus £100. As I say except for the “exclusive” members club style nurseries that are all popping up.

I find it mindboggling that someone earning 100k+ wouldn’t use their pension contributions (or tax free allowances) when they’re paying 2 lots of childcare in London. This is the same idiocy a lot of my sons’ friends parents use at his private school - most of them have lost out on their 15 hours a week because they refused to put anything into their pensions thinking, mistakingly, it would maximise their incomes. In fact they might have had more cash in hand. On the other hand, however, I know people who put 100k into their pensions every year so they can lower tax bands lol

So quit your job.

Have you considered a child minder? In my experience (and all my close friends’) children have a better level of care if you are lucky to find a good one, and it can also be much cheaper than nursery. They also go to a variety of play groups, day trips to farms, zoo, parks etc instead of being couped up indoors with fairly limited outdoor play time.

Have you thought about getting a job that pays more?

Except the free childcare hours demonstrably are for people on high incomes, probably higher than the OPs household income. As evidenced by the fact that you can get them with 2 x 99k earners in the household. Whatever way you slice it, this clearly is not something aimed at low earners. The fact that there's a minimum income requirement should tell you that.

@pimlicopubber you are NBU to be annoyed that the lazy Tory govt have rolled out this initiative without proper funding such that you and me and all other paying childcare users are ultimately stumping up the cash to pay for the initiative.

Getting more parents (women) back to work by making childcare affordable is the goal but very very poorly thought through as per usual from this government.

For those bemoaning that higher rate tax payers shouldn’t benefit from anything back from their tax because they can ‘afford it’, please take your misdirected anger and point it towards the ballot box this week. So many huge corporations operating in the UK are not paying anywhere near the amount of tax they should be. Literally billions of pounds of tax payers (our own) money has been squandered and thrown away by our current government. We are left in a race to the bottom and the government would much prefer we fight amongst ourselves than question where and how they have spent OUR money.

You can only put £60k a year into your pension.