The second income trap: the share of a second salary that never reaches the household, from 26.0% in Stockholm to 95.5% in New York

By Skyler Bissell · September 12, 2026 · 10 min read

77.2% of a $56,250 second salary never reaches a Seattle family with a three-year-old and a seven-year-old. Part of it is the income tax and payroll her salary adds to a bill that already contains her partner's; the rest is the nursery and after-school place her job makes necessary. That share is the second income trap, and it is a rate, which means it can be compared across countries the way a tax rate can. For the same family it is 26.0% in Stockholm, 45.8% in Berlin, 56.1% in London and 56.0% in Zurich, where the household keeps CHF 19,793 from her working.

This page defines the rate and ranks seven cities on it. The money behind each rate, salary by salary, is in the pair to this page, is it worth working after paying for childcare, and I have not repeated the ledger here.

The second income trap is the share of a second earner's gross salary that never reaches the household. It has two parts: the income tax and contributions the salary adds to the household's bill, which depends on whether the country taxes the couple together or each person alone, and the childcare the job makes necessary, which depends on whether the price of a nursery place is set by a market or capped by law. The total also includes cash-benefit changes: Amsterdam loses €1,580 of kindgebonden budget when the second parent works. The OECD calls the tax part a participation tax rate and prices the childcare part separately as the net childcare cost; this page combines those bills with any change in cash benefits.

TL;DR

The rate runs from about a quarter of the second salary in Stockholm to almost all of it in New York. The seven-city ranking.
Berlin taxes the second salary at 44.4% and London at 18.9%, on similar top rates, because Germany files the couple together and Britain does not. Multiplier one.
Stockholm has the lowest combined rate; New York has the highest. Multiplier two.

The trap as a rate, seven cities ranked

One household throughout: two earners splitting USD 150,000 at a 100/60 ratio, children aged three and seven, a two-bedroom rental, 6% into retirement, restated in local currency abroad at a fixed ratio. The second earner is on the 60 side of the split in every city. Each rate below is what she loses, as a share of her gross, against the same household with her at home and no childcare bought; the tax and childcare components are given beside it. The total also includes cash-benefit changes. Amsterdam loses €1,580 of kindgebonden budget when the second parent works; that adds 3.1 percentage points to its tax and childcare shares.

Stockholm, 26.0%. Tax on her salary 20.8%, childcare 5.2%. Individual taxation since 1971 and a förskola fee capped by the maxtaxa.
Berlin, 45.8%. Tax 44.4%, childcare 1.4%. The cheapest childcare on the page and the highest tax on the second salary, under Ehegattensplitting.
Amsterdam, 47.0%. Tax 19.7%, childcare 24.2%. Individual assessment in Box 1; a market nursery price with kinderopvangtoeslag refunding part of it.
Zurich, 56.0%. Tax 16.8%, childcare 39.2%. The lightest tax on the page; the childcare figure includes the modeled municipal income-tested fee.
London, 56.1%. Tax 18.9%, childcare 37.2%. Independent taxation since 1990; the childcare figure includes the modeled working-parent funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare.
Seattle, 77.2%. Tax 19.8%, childcare 57.4%. Married filing jointly, no state income tax, a market nursery price.
New York, 95.5%. Tax 27.2%, childcare 68.3%. Married filing jointly plus state and city income tax, and the dearest American childcare in our data.

Engine figures, 2026, at the exchange rates in the current build. Tax is the household's income tax plus mandatory employee contributions with both earning, minus the same bill with the second earner at home, over her gross. Childcare is a full-time place for the three-year-old plus after-school care for the seven-year-old at each city's own rates, net of any subsidy the household qualifies for at this income, over her gross. Zurich's figure includes the modeled municipal income-tested fee. London's figure includes the modeled working-parent funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare. New York's nursery price is from Care.com listings, crowdsourced and marked as such.

The ranking combines tax and childcare bills with any change in cash benefits. Berlin has the cheapest nursery and the dearest tax on the second salary. Zurich has the lightest tax on the second salary; New York has the largest childcare share. Stockholm keeps both components small.

Zurich's household gains CHF 19,793 from her working after CHF 7,567 of extra tax and CHF 17,639 of childcare. The modeled income-tested fee changes the result. Eligibility for a subsidised place and the assessment-income approximation still matter. The New York to Zurich comparison for a family shows what that does to a whole household budget.

Multiplier one: who files

A country either taxes a married couple as one unit or as two people, and the choice decides what the second earner's first unit of income is charged. Under joint filing it is added to a household already partway up the progressive ladder and taxed at the household's marginal rate, with no allowance of its own. Under individual filing it starts at the bottom of its own ladder, with its own allowance and low bands, whatever the partner earns.

Germany's Ehegattensplitting under § 32a Abs. 5 EStG is the clearest joint case: the couple's taxable income is halved, run through the tariff, and the tax doubled. That rewards a household with one earner and charges the second earner her partner's marginal rate from the first euro, with pension, health, care and unemployment insurance on her gross on top, which is how Berlin's tax component reaches 44.4% on a €51,750 salary. The American joint return works the same way for federal tax: her salary lands in the married-filing-jointly brackets on top of his, so the tax component is 19.8% in Seattle and 27.2% in New York, where state and city tax stack on the federal bill. Zurich files the couple together under the cantonal Verheiratetentarif and still comes in at 16.8%, because Swiss income tax at this income is low to begin with.

Britain has taxed spouses independently since 1990. Sweden has since 1971. The Netherlands assesses employment income per person in Box 1 whatever the fiscal partner earns. In all three the second salary is taxed as a single person's would be, so the tax component is 18.9% in London, 20.8% in Stockholm and 19.7% in Amsterdam. The gap between Berlin and London on this component, on similar top rates, is the filing rule and nothing else. The mechanism behind "the second earner's first dollar is taxed at the household's marginal rate" is set out in marginal vs effective tax rate, which named this trap before I had a number for it. The tax component on its own, with no children and no nursery in the household, is ranked across nine cities on the second earner tax rate comparison.

Multiplier two: what a nursery place costs

The childcare component is a price divided by a salary, so it is large wherever the price is set by a market and small wherever a law caps it. Zurich's Kita and Hort take 39.2% of her salary after the modeled municipal income-tested fee reduction, New York's nursery 68.3%, Seattle's 57.4%, London's 37.2% after the modeled working-parent funded hours and Tax-Free Childcare. Amsterdam's is 24.2% after kinderopvangtoeslag, a refund that exists only while both parents work. Stockholm's maxtaxa holds the fee to 5.2%, and Berlin's food money at a fee-free Kita is 1.4%.

The OECD's childcare-support indicator gives the scale of this across countries: its "typical" gross fee for two children in full-time centre-based care works out at just under 26% of average earnings across the OECD, and the net cost to a two-earner couple after benefits at just under 14%, on 2018 data updated in April 2022. Its household differs from mine (children aged two and three, the first earner on the average wage and the second on 67% of it), which is why I quote the OECD for the spread and my engine for the rate. The price behind each city's component is in childcare costs by country.

As earnings rise, the childcare share depends on both the fee and any help the household loses. When paid care ends, the childcare component disappears; tax and changes in cash benefits still determine the rate.

What the rate does and does not say

It prices one year. A second earner who stays in work keeps her pension contributions, her seniority and her salary in five years; one who leaves in the nursery years often returns lower. None of that is in the rate, and all of it argues for reading a high rate as a fee for keeping a career, paid for a few years.
It counts cash-benefit changes. Kindergeld, barnbidrag, kinderbijslag, the Swiss Kinderzulage and the US Child Tax Credit are the same on both sides at this income. Amsterdam loses €1,580 of income-tested kindgebonden budget when the second parent works, and that loss is included in the rate.
Eligibility still matters. Seattle's Child Care Assistance Program stops at USD 153,244 for a family of four, just above this household. Seattle's possible help remains a note. London and Zurich's modeled income-tested reductions are included in the figures; scheme conditions and subsidised-place availability still matter.
It is a share of her salary alone. The household's own effective rate, both earners in, is a different number and sits beside the healthcare line in the true tax burden once healthcare is counted.

FAQ

Is the second income trap the same as the marriage penalty?

No, though they overlap. The marriage penalty compares a couple's tax bill married against unmarried on the same two salaries. The second income trap compares the household with and without the second salary, and it counts childcare, which the marriage penalty never does. Britain taxes spouses independently, yet London's combined rate here is 56.1%: 18.9% in extra tax and 37.2% in childcare.

Does the second income trap apply to a single parent?

The tax half largely does not, because there is no first salary to stack the second on, so a single parent's salary meets the ordinary bands. The childcare half applies in full, and the alternative to working is no earned income at all, because there is no partner's salary to fall back on. The OECD runs its childcare-cost indicator for a lone parent as well as a couple for that reason. Our single-parent scenario, two children and one salary, sits under every comparison page as the with-kids variant.

At what salary does the trap disappear?

How do I calculate my own second income trap rate?

Take the household's tax bill with both salaries and subtract the bill with only the first; add the childcare bill the second job makes necessary and any cash benefits lost; divide by the second salary. Our calculator does the two tax runs for you: enter both salaries, note net cash, untick the box for your partner working and set care to none, note net cash again, and the difference over the second salary is one minus your rate.

The money behind every rate on this page, city by city and line by line, is in is it worth working after paying for childcare. The framework both pages hang off, with the parental leave year that neither of them prices, is the cost of raising kids. The Seattle to Stockholm comparison for a family runs the two ends of the ranking against each other for a published household, and the calculator runs yours.

Sources. The participation-tax-rate and net-childcare-cost concepts and the OECD-average figures quoted above: OECD Family Database, PF3.4 Childcare support (updated April 2022, 2018 data), retrieved 12 September 2026. Filing rules: § 32a EStG (Ehegattensplitting); IRS, tax year 2026 inflation adjustments (married filing jointly); HMRC, income tax rates; Skatteverket and the Belastingdienst for individual assessment in Sweden and the Netherlands; the ESTV Rundschreiben Nr. 215 and Zürich § 35 Abs. 2 StG for the married tariff. Childcare prices: the US Department of Labor, National Database of Childcare Prices (Seattle); Care.com listings for New York, crowdsourced and marked as such; the Berlin Senate, Kostenbeteiligung; Coram's Family and Childcare Survey for London; Skolverket's maxtaxa for Stockholm; the Belastingdienst kinderopvangtoeslag tables for Amsterdam; Stadt Zürich, Kita for Zurich. Every other value carries its own source and date in data/_meta.json, and our price lines split between official and crowdsourced sources as described in the methodology.

Figures here come from cityparity's per-city engine and were current at publication; fees, benefit amounts and exchange rates move, so treat any single number as a strong estimate and run your own inputs. Where our comparison pages quote an equivalent salary, it is the bar an offer has to clear in the destination city and it is not a job offer. See the methodology.