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Tories would expand free childcare to high earners, Badenoch says
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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UK Politics
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It should still be means tested but switched to means testing household income rather than individual income.
It has always massively pissed me off that you could have a couple each earning just under the threshold qualifying for the full amount and a single earner just over the end of the taper getting nothing, yet the net income for the couple is considerably higher not least because of two vs one tax free allowance and two lots of 20%.
This was also posted in a different irrelevant community that I commented on, so I'll paste the comment here too:
It sounds dumb, but there are plenty of people who I work with who cut back work hours to stay under 100k. They say the marginal tax rate on earning above 100k plus the loss of free childcare (which is 1000s of £) means you actually lose money. The rich shouldn't be given more money, but the benefits should decline linearly rather than drop off a cliff edge.
The insane part is that 2 spouses earning 90k each are much much better off than one earning 180k. The whole tax system can be pretty regressive in some ways.
Edit:
Also: Childcare is also fundamentally broken in this country. 2 children's part-time childcare cost us more than our mortgage on a monthly basis. Now the country is in this insane situation nationally where fertility rates are falling (partly because children are too expensive to raise), and people who want to work are kept out of work (the rich are cutting hours and the poor should never work if it means paying for childcare is more expensive than than the money they bring in).