ANP extension
ANNOUNCEMENTS••Edited
The childcare allowance will increase slightly next year to offset the sharp increase in childcare costs. This was written by Minister Van Gennip (Social Affairs and Employment) in a letter to the House of Representatives. Parent advocates think this only partially solves the problems.
Van Gennip calls “the exceptional and unanticipated rise in inflation” a reason to deviate from the normal system.
Hourly rates in child care are soaring, and “if parents have to pay a lot more for child care, I can well imagine that will keep them awake,” Van Gennip writes in the House.
Stop working
He’s stepping in now, and not just when the Spring Memorandum comes out, because he wants to stop parents from doing it stop working because shelter is too expensive.
The maximum rate at which parents can receive a childcare allowance would increase by 5.6 per cent in 2023 compared to this year, but the minister has now decided to increase it to 6.54 per cent.
“The good news is that the minister has listened to our concerns,” replied chairman Gjalt Jellesma of the Parents in Childcare Interest Group (Boink). “But that only solves the problem a little bit. Child care prices are almost all sectors higher than the price you pay the allowance on. Parents have to pay the difference in full.”
Marjet Winsemius, director of the Working Parents Foundation, is also pleased that the ministry is proposing this fix, but she also thinks it won’t eliminate all the problems. “We see prices in the industry going up about 8.5%. Many parents, especially those with small wallets, will still be impacted by price hikes in their wallets, while all other costs are also high.”
57 million more
GroenLinks and PvdA have consistently drawn attention to lagging indexing. MP Maatoug (GroenLinks) is delighted that the cabinet is “finally giving a definitive answer after weeks of uncertainty and then returning from previous plans to leave the increases intact”.
The intervention is estimated at 57 million euros, which is added to the approximately 225 million already allocated for the increase in hourly rates.