High childcare costs are being blamed for families not being able to have a decent standard of living in the UK, according to a report issued by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
New research from Loughborough University, which analyses the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) for the UK, found that parents are being left £2,600 short of being able to make ends meets.
How much do you need to earn to reach an acceptable living standard? https://t.co/LvMxXSkD2f #solveukpoverty pic.twitter.com/aIQsBl8Bl1
— Joseph Rowntree Fdn. (@jrf_uk) July 28, 2016
The report explains how even with the National Minimum Wage being £7.20 an hour high childcare costs are hugely prohibitive on a family's financial situation.
But it's not just the UK that is struggling; childcare costs in Ireland are the second most expensive among the OECD countries, according to the National Competitive Council’s annual report. And unlike in some countries, there are no subsidies or benefits for parents at all.
In fact, a report issued last year found that parents need to earn up to €30,000 a year to pay for the cost of childcare for two children - and with minimum wage just €9.15 for some families this is near impossible.
Shockingly, MummyPages did research last year, and found that 84% of working parents struggle to budget for their children’s childcare costs
In the UK the JRF are calling on the Government to undertake a "radical overhaul of the childcare system to make it easier for families to balance earning and caring," and they have issued the following recommendations:
- Building on the Government’s existing free childcare offer (15 hours for 3 and 4 year olds) by making the free hours entitlement available for 48 rather than 38 weeks of the year and across the full working day.
- Make childcare free to families on the lowest incomes, with costs capped at 10 per cent of disposable income for those with low to middle incomes.
- Increasing the quality of childcare to support child development, by increasing investment to 0.85 per cent of GDP, up from allocated childcare spending of approximately 0.48 per cent in 2017/18 and moving to a graduate-led system of childcare workers.
“Childcare has become the one of the biggest barriers to reaching a decent living standard in modern Britain. Work should always be the best route to a better life, but these figures show that a comprehensive plan to bring down the high cost of childcare, and improve the returns from working more hours, is desperately need," Julia Unwin, Chief Executive of JRF, said.
“Having promoted greater access to childcare, the Government now faces the challenge of ensuring that it truly becomes affordable and available to help ease the strain on parents’ juggling working and caring. A radical overhaul is needed.”
The childcare crisis is definitely something the Irish Government needs to take a long, hard look at - a radical overhaul is needed in this country as well.
