To think this working parents eligibility criteria is unfair?

[takehischipsandputthemonmyplate]

Ready to put my tin hat on but...

I am a low earner (£25k) and partner is high earner but not exceptionally so (£110k in London) so we aren't eligible due to my
partner earning over £100k. However we have friends who combined bring in far more (almost at £200k together) but are individually just under the £100k threshold and so will be eligible for the free hours from 9 months in September 2025, thus savings thousands on childcare.

I appreciate it's a case of my diamond shoes are too tight but this does feel like a flaw in the system.

This is incorrect:

2 tax payers on 90k pa each will pay 54.5k tax total and get free nursery hours

1 tax payed on 155k each will pay 61k tax, another one on 25k pays 3.5k tax, so 64.5k combined tax and no free hours, despite gross household income being the same.

This system is ridiculous

So where would you suggest the cut off be then?

The country cannot afford to pay for those who can pay for themselves.
Many families are living entirely on what you personally earn. Just imagine that, for a second.

Or you could say it encourages women to become higher earners so they can make the most of the tax advantage. If you earned £70k, you’d then be able to put your husband’s money in a pension and be overall better off.

I actually think it’s a positive thing for women, they aren’t penalised just because their husband is the bigger earner. Both couple then pay air of tax so this makes up for it.

The problem is there are so many cliffs in the system. We didn't benefit from the free 30 hours for similar reasons. I went to look around a primary school where the Headmistress told me point blank that all the kids in nursery school on 30 hours way out perform the kids doing 15 hours. Even if I wanted to (I didn't), my kid wasn't entitled to attend school nursery.

I’m not sure I understand your second paragraph (and this is genuine, not passive-aggressive) - I find it hard to imagine how it will directly affect the most disadvantaged children given that even a £100k household income is so far above the national average, but perhaps I am missing something about implementation. Maybe the issue is that assessing the ‘whole household’ for children who live in chaotic circumstances could end up capturing an array of adults who don’t in reality contribute, but that seems pretty politically unlikely - any change would almost certainly be assessing the income of the exact same people who are assessed now, but using a different criteria at the end to determine the cut-off.

This is completely wrong, one earner on say £120k will pay absolutely loads more tax than 2 on £60k each - 2 tax free allowances vs none, 2 lower rate bands vs 1. I’m not going to calculate it but it’s loads more.

it does penalise single earner families but the tax system does that anyway and it’s right to do that - as adults who aren’t economically active aren’t a good thing for the economy.

if there are two earners with one > £100k then you shouldn’t really need the benefits, as you’ve just said you want to use DH’s bonus for savings/mortgage - free childcare isn’t there to subsidise your savings. If it’s a struggle in London you could always move!

for context I’m a high earner and my DH earns less than half what I do (so totally disagree it’s a feminist issue!) - and I’m still paying back a whole years worth of child benefit where my salary rose a lot due to a promotion and changing to full time hours. Not complaining, that’s the way the cookie crumbles and we’re still way better off.

I see where you are coming from and I agree. It does seem crazy

@StMarie4me they aren’t just paying for themselves though. They are paying full price for their children and then tax to pay for other people’s children

This is no-way near our household income but I agree that it's not good policy.

It's not fair that two people can have more income and still reliece it..

It makes higher earners do things like drop hours and increase pension to avoid the cliff edge, or avoid promotion..

It also makes the lower earner in this situation basically dependant on the higher earner being willing to pay for nursery. The higher earner could put pressure on them to leave their job as its better for the family.

I think universal childcare is better.

@WednesburyUnreasonable whenever any service becomes means-tested-by-household rather than universal with exceptions for an easily-triggered higher-end cutoff, vulnerable children start falling through the gaps. The executive function needed to complete eligibility forms will put off some, the cultural reluctance to accept anything that is means-tested rather than universal will put off some. As a pp pointed out, women fought for decades for the right to hold their finances independently from their spouse/partner and the ability to be taxed as an individual without having to share full finances with their spouse is a lifeline to women who are trapped in abusive situations, and mothers of children who are at risk and are trying to build themselves an escape route will have their capacity to protect their children destroyed by such changes.

@boxyboxs a household earning £200k that’s split 50/50 between the earners will pay less tax than a household where it’s split 80/20 due to the tax bands. Adding in the over £100k threshold for funded hours just makes the unfairness worse.

I'm a single mum earning £100k, I reduced my hours to 90% to get under the threshold. It's even worse for single parent families because if my salary was split between two people I'd be a lot better off - less tax, child benefit etc. As it stands after the mortgage, bills and nursery fees I have no money at the end of the month. It took 13 years to qualify in my role and I didn't think I'd be breaking even every month on this kind of salary

Largely agree with most of this, other than it being right to penalise single earner families. Some of us exist because we are the only adult in the house and it feels like high earning single mums are not considered at all. Now that probably is a feminist issue as there are plenty of barriers to us becoming high earners

Were the same - DH earnt £104k last year (due to a bonus which we needed to replace our leaking bathroom) and I earn £12k as a teacher 2 days a week. I would increase my hours but it already costs £60 per week for the half day we have to pay for so I would basically be working to pay for nursery, but those who earn £99k each will get 30 hours funding.

Yes it does seem unfair that others can earn more combined but still be eligible.

Do you work p/t to be earning £25k?

One suggestion would be for parents to try to rebalance earnings between them a little more. If OP's DH was able to reduce hours to 4 day/week and OP increase hours, potentially they would be able to earn similar combined but neither exceed the cap. Of course this is dependent on employer, type of work and if one partner has already taken lower paid path for sake of flexibility their increased earnings may not make up for the other partner reducing. So potentially not an option for OP but something I would suggest others consider. It can also help with one partner not being the default carer, both parents spending time with kids more evenly etc etc.

This basically.

Lots of people will take the situation as "I may as well give up work".

When they could be
"We'll both plan to earn decent money and both make our careers work around our kids"

I completely agree with this. The current system encourages women to max out their earnings (a good thing IMO). Otherwise your DH’s earnings could go up and it wouldn’t be “worth” you earning more. This way it’s worth you earning more so your DH can drop some of his earnings into pension and qualify for the funded childcare.

Agree a system that encourages women not to earn as much is not a good system

It's very difficult to design a system based on household income because incomes are taxed separately. It's therefore relatively easy for HMRC /DWP to check eligibility.
Systems that are based on household income take much longer to design, to set up and they are more expensive and labour intensive to run which is why the system is based on individual income.
It does seem unfair but it's the price that is paid if people want something set up quite quickly and fairly simply.

This doesn't really make sense.
If you need the 30h for work and therefore our your child in nursery anyway, then putting the 10k into pension is by far the most viable option.

After tax, you only get 5k net out of it anyway, and the tax-free childcare portion alone is 2k per year.
You will get much more out of the tax-free childcare and additional 'free' hours than you could by receiving it as salary.

Or:

• your husband's earnings aren't actually 110k (it's 110 + high bonus which would push him above the 130ish break even threshold), and in that case the discrepancy with your friends isn't that big
• your child isn't in nursery full time and therefore you don't need the nursery space anyway

Could your DH go down to 4 days? Both my DH and I have done that to keep us under the threshold. And we get more time with the kids working 4 days!

How are you only earning £30k FTE as a teacher? That’s not even the pay for a newly qualified according to the pay scales.

If you did 4 days a week (so an extra £12k gross according to your numbers), your husband could put the £4k into his pension and you’d be £8k gross better off, PLUS qualify for the 30 free hours and tax free childcare which would fund the vast majority of the childcare you need if your children are small.

This is a good thing IMO, it incentivises women to work.

You have a household income of 135k. Plus a bonus coming. If you can't afford life, you need to put those Dimond shoes on vinted, and not replace them.

Or it could be taken as encouragement for the largest earner (typically male) reduces to part time 4 days or similar to normalise the big boss also prioritising home life. Thus making it easier for lower earners (typically women) to also work part time without it affecting current job / careers progression. And with the added benefit of the higher earners also pulling their weight more and being a better parent, raising children in an even household.

But maybe those who earn 99k each still have a leaky bathroom because they choose to fill pension instead.