The research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) found that the minimum amount a couple with two children need to make for a socially acceptable standard of living has risen by nearly a third since 2008, because of soaring childcare and transport costs and cuts to tax credits.
Two parents need to earn at least £18,400 each, or £36,800 if only one parent works, to support themselves and two children in 2012, an increase of £5,000 on 2008 when the JRF’s first report was published.
According to the report, ‘A Minimum Income Standard for The UK in 2012: Keeping up in hard times’, minimum costs of childcare have risen by nearly a third since 2008, based on the Daycare Trust’s Childcare Costs Survey, and childcare is now families’ single biggest weekly outgoing.
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