Childcare reform: what about parents not on benefits?

[justwren]

So universal credit claimants will be entitled to more help with childcare costs as announced by the govt this week.
What about those who aren't on benefits?
We're the ones who have to be finding 14k a year for one child in nursery. I'm not entitled to any benefits because my husband earns £34k a year. That's hardly millions!

Why is there no support being offered to the families who are having to pay for it in its entirety?

I'm sure if one parent is on benefits tho you can get free hours when they are 2

This.

OP, if you don't work, perhaps you should get a job and help cover the bill.

The whole point of the increase is to help people with lower incomes than you, get back in to work.

I know everyone's circumstances are different but we have a combined income of £57k and still receive about £300 UC a month due to our childcare bill.
Although if you're not working surely you wouldn't spend that on nursery?! We do because we have to, to allow us to work!

But why is there a massive nursery bill if she doesn’t work?

The 15 hours early education is universal from 3.

It’s the additional 15 that require a minimum income (and a maximum).

You have to be on a pretty low household income to qualify for 2 year old funding.

Or the child can qualify due to disability or involvement with the care system.

www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/free-childcare-2-year-olds

Why are people so quick to tell op to 'get a job' when the vitriol spat at someone who would suggest that to a person who's on benefits is HUGE!!

Its not living off 300 a month though is it? That’s just a top up, PP earns 40k and gets that.

If you earn 25k for instance it’s lot more. Particularly if you’re also claiming for housing.

34k isn't a lot but since you've only mentioned one wage I'm assuming you don't work in which case you don't need childcare.

I'm a UC claimant, I earn 30k a year, what I pay in tax and ni is more than the benefits I get back. I don't get a lot but having help with childcare means I can work and contribute to society.

mums unable to work because of the childcare costs outweighing any salary it wouldn't make sense.
We have got to stop framing childcare as a women’s issue! Yes, women are disproportionately impacted but that’s part of the problem: it’s always framed as mums unable to work, mums’ salaries cover childcare with nothing left, etc. If we make this a problem for men too it might actually get sorted.

UC doesn’t reimburse childcare costs for a household where nobody is in paid employment; paid work is actually in the eligibility criteria for UC childcare costs help. So there isn’t a bunch of unemployed single mums putting their kids in nursery while they do nothing all day every day. Which seems to be what people think. You have to be working to get that particular bit of help.

Childcare affordability in this country is dire, and the UC change is actually just tinkering around the edges for those of us who meet the eligibility criteria for partial help with childcare costs. It’s better than nothing but it’s not what’s really needed. The entire system of provision of good-quality early years childcare needs huge reform. For example, if we had a better and more accessible childcare system, you could easily leave your DC and go out to work as well. Anyone could, unless they didn’t want to, in which case it’s hard to see why they’d be annoyed about other people who are in work getting any help to access childcare.

I work full-time and earn around as much as your DH, and the reason I need to put my DD in childcare is because I don’t have a partner staying at home to provide childcare for DD.

UC allowance is a max of £640-odd per month for childcare for one child (reimburses, doesn’t pay upfront) - but full-time childcare here, as in lots of the country, is ~£1500 per month for the lowest-cost option. I can’t afford that even with UC reimbursement, so DD is getting two days a week with a grandparent, as that’s the only way I can work full-time - but grandparent is in their 70s and has moderately disabling health issues, so DD’s activities are very limited on those days.

I've given the whole subject a lot of thought over the last year - and have come to the conclusion that even if I was unable to increase my own salary (the potential to earn more in future is why I have no choice but to be full-time now), it would still be absolutely great to have a partner who was available to provide DD’s childcare. Or even a partner out at work to earn enough to cover DD’s childcare costs!

I would trade places with you in a heartbeat. You and your DH might feel a bit better about your situation if you counted your blessings, instead of seemingly imagining that us struggling households eligible for UC are actually not struggling. Maybe do some thought experiments on the topic of how hard life would be for you if you were suddenly a single-parent household (especially with only one living grandparent). But honestly, please focus on counting your blessings. You have more options than many.

Have you forgotten the free school meals, free opticians, free milk for babies, free bus fares, …. Wonder what that all adds up to?

Not forgotten but presumably those requiring childcare do so because they work. The threshold for fsm etc is minuscule so anyone that works more than a handful of hours a week does not qualify. It's mostly just those on full benefits not in work that receive these things

The real problem with the 30 hours is the term time only - who thought that was helpful for childcare? There is next to nothing available for 3-4 year olds in school holidays so you can't even just pay for separate childcare

You’re being massively unreasonable. And you’re missing a key point, that with the additional allowance, those who were not eligible before may be entitled to some help now. Those who aren’t, but earning under 100k will get the tax free childcare.
Those working and on UC don’t get the whole lot of childcare funded anyway, so they still have quite a lot of money to find to pay for it. When we looked into it we’d be eligible for UC but the amount was equal to less than the amount we could claim via tax free childcare so we did that route instead. It’s not black and white.
Dont forget those not working don’t get any help with childcare til the 15 hours at 2, which is a scheme nothing to do with providing childcare for parents but to provide enrichment for children who may otherwise be disadvantaged compared to their peers.
So really you’re bashing those where two parents are working and also paying their taxes but claiming a small amount of government help.

I'm not entitled to any benefits because my husband earns £34k a year

What js your salary too though? Presumably if you are paying for childcare you both work?

My monthly childcare bill for 2 children 8-6pm 4 days a week. Is £1,849.94. This is including the 30 free hours for my oldest. Well that's what is was last month.

Nursery have sent through an email about fees increases from next month, my youngest has gone up £102 a month. I can't work out the extra for my eldest. But my guess will be our bill now will be £2000 a month. £24,000 a year. It actually makes me feel physically sick.

Because her complaint is that the government isn’t paying some of the £14k childcare bill.

If she’s not working (and she only mentions her husband’s salary - UC is about household income), then it’s obvious that she should get a job to help pay for the childcare the family are choosing to pay for.

Whilst I get what you are saying it is true that women are usually the lowest earners. So if you have a 2 income family, you're only just making ends meet on those 2 salaries and child care is the equivalent of one salary, then it makes sense, short term, for lowest salary not to work. Yes it makes it harder to get back in to the job market, and yes it removes things like the possibility of promotion, wage increases etc but if it will cost the family income for one person to work, then lots of families have little choice but to have one parent not work. We were lucky, the lowest income in our household was still more than full time nursery + cost of working, and even if it hadn't we could have afforded a short term loss on the high income. But neither job would allow compressed hours, flexible working or part time (we both asked), so we really couldn't reduce the cost of child care.

@Oigetoffmylawn But that’s why women are the lowest earners: maternity leave, going back part time or not at all after leave – being the one to drop out of the career race to make ends meet when childcare costs too much, etc. It only takes a short while for the men to race ahead and the women can never catch up, so then it makes even more sense they’re the ones to stay home after second DC, only pick up term time hours once they start school, etc. It’s a vicious cycle. Reframing this is a societal issue not a women’s issue and addressing childcare costs but also availability of wraparound care and holiday care would help address women’s earnings, then once – on a societal level – women earn equally, it’s more likely more women will be able to go back to work. Of course there will always be those who choose to be a SAHP, or to go part time, or to have the less stressful job so they can be on hand for the 900 childhood illnesses, etc. But that person doesn’t always have to be female and it’s not as simple as “women earn less” – we earn less because of children then we frame it as “women need childcare”. Meanwhile the DHs with their important jobs are off to the races.

I hope for those working the tax free childcare amount increases a little maybe £3 or £4 rather than the current £2 for every £8 parents pay.
I have two kids I decided to have two kids because that’s what we can afford and we are able to currently pay for child care but with the cost of everything going up including childcare are providers it is extremely tight.

Ok whilst it isn’t a woman’s issue - it is a family issue

I’m grateful I could stay home and raise my own children - why should we all assume that women are desperate to get back to work to keep up with the male earnings?

I was earning £12K and childcare was £36K plus - no point in working for a £24K deficit which was roughly DH’s earnings.

Why we are a nation focused on child = costs

Why shouldn’t we be able to have babies and lives decent lives on salaries that pay the mortgage and look after our own children?

Put it this way - the government are hell bent on getting woman to work so they can reap the rewards of taxation - rather than give woman decent salaries they offer to pay the childcare which is temporary solution

Now imagine instead woman earns X which covered bills and mortgage without government help which meant once the children are in school they can be rewarded from their own earnings? Imagine that!! But no they carry on in low incomes which barely cover the cost of going to work.

We need higher wages.

Not the point of the thread but do you work OP? You only mention your husbands salary but have £14k childcare costs for two kids? I don't understand why you'd have those costs unless you also work and then surely your household salary is therefore quite a bit more than £34k?

I do agree with you though OP nevertheless, childcare costs are crippling and we've made a lot of financial decisions purely because of them. We have two in nursery atm as well but only two days a week atm. Our eldest starts school in September but our childcare costs will actually increase then because wraparound and holiday cover for those two days a week will cost overall more than the consumables top up we currently pay for them at nursery! I only work 3 days a week and DH only works 4. He dropped his 5th day recently after we realised that even on his FT salary of £40k his net daily pay was basically the same as a day of them both in nursery.

free bus fare?

I do agree with this but it's not just low waged jobs that are affected, childcare in this country I believe is higher than any other OECD country (don't quote me apologies if I'm wrong!) and many other developed nations have heavy state subsidised childcare. People earning decent salaries of £30 - £40k are not low waged employees but childcare still can be crippling especially if you dare to have more than one child. As I said, my husband has a FTE salary of around £40k but his net daily rate is roughly the same as our two nursery aged kids being in nursery on a day my eldest doesn't get the funded hours. People around us who are older or don't have kids find that absolutely shocking and it is. His wage doesn't really need to go up, it's a decent wage, it's just the childcare is crippling due to lack of state investment which they do have in lots of other developed nations. He's gone down to a 30hr week and probably wouldn't have realistically if childcare wasn't so expensive.

I think we're all a little sick about those on benefits not earning their benefit. I think they (everyone on benefits who is not diagnosed with a disability or caring - and checked they're caring- for someone with a disability) should be paid minimum wage and have to work the right no. of hours for their benefits - that includes everything they get funded by the state in rent etc. Most would need to work almost a full time job wouldn't they? Would that mean we suddenly have enough staff to run businesses? Yes!

Why isn't government looking at that? If you're not working and on benefits, do you need more childcare anyway?!

OP your income etc is not enough to pay 14k post tax out as childcare. Can this be reduced? Do you work and add to the coffers, is that why you need childcare?

I recall at one stage paying £20k from my net income in child care when there was only me working - hubby was very ill - and I was on a c£40k/£45k salary. The kids were both less than 2 years old. My hubby ended up taking on child care because we just had no money (going back to the 00's here) but same principle and I then bought childcare vouchers via work to fund sessions at the local nursery. My dh looked after the kids from then on and never went back to work.

As a mum of 3 I agree with this. 2 are primary age and one in nursery. I cannot afford to work more hours as childcare in the school holidays would cost about £600 a week. I won't earn that plus it's nearly impossible to find care for 3 dcs especially when one of the kids has complex additional support needs. Breakfast and after school clubs are £60 a day. The only solution me and DH could find is him to work full time and me to work some weekends

Term time care does not work as parents don't work term time in most cases.