Counting the Costs of Childcare

Counting the Costs of Childcare finds that high childcare costs mean that a woman working full-time could bring home as little as £4 a week in extra pay. In the most extreme case, a second earner working full-time at the minimum wage in a family where her partner is already working full-time at the same wage, would be left with just £211 (£4 a week) from her annual wage of £11,900 after the costs of caring for two children and the loss of tax credits which would be gradually withdrawn as the family’s income rose.