Having just had a baby this is absolutely true. We’re in the UK and yes, healthcare is taken care of, but daycare is going to be around £1800+ a month. This is our first kid and I’m 35 and wife is 36. We had to wait this long as we needed to make sure we could absorb such an insane cost. Somehow we’re still meant to save for pensions etc. We’ll be ok, but we have a ridiculously high household income compared to the total population. I truly don’t know how others do it. Yet pensions go up 10% a year - and I’m not against universal pensions, but c’mon.
Pensions have gone up 10% this year because inflation has been 10% over the past year.
State pensions in the UK are very low to start with. If they don't at least keep up with inflation many elderly will end up destitute (and cost even more to the NHS...).
I'm well aware of inflation, but it says a lot that penioners vote tory and literally no one else seems to anymore. As I said, I support universal pensions, but why not do anything serious to help people raising children? I'm seriously wondering what the point of staying in London is. I still love the city, but the country has a death wish - not born here, almost a citizen, have been able to vote since we arrived due to commonwealth. After more than a decade of effective austerity as well, it's hard to see how anything can actually get better without a political will and consensus to invest that just doesn't seem to exist. It really does feel like the place is falling apart when you interact with govt services these days.
I think daycare prices are mandated by law here in Finland so that parents are paying between 28 and 295 euro per month per child. Price depends on whether it's the first or second child, and what kind of household income you are earning.
The actual dream. I often gently tease my wife as I've advocated moving to Berlin on and off over the years - I think state support for families in DE is quite generous.
My wife lived in Germany before she met me, and was married then. She was getting a lot of input that she should pop out some kids and raise them with Kindergeld. It seemed like the kind of system that U.S. opponents of Welfare get nightmares from. But I don't know how it currently operates.
Yeah, all the ones close are private and priced similarly. I think there might be some council centres, but it depends on which borough you live in, and I think it's means tested.
I think it's hard to appreciate just how hollowed out the UK public service has become, yet we still pay a decent amount of tax relative to other OECD countries.
