jsa your havin a laugh

[bod1888]

i have recently became unemployed, bad enough as it is till the bombshell of the job centre i claimed jsa and was awarded the sum of .83p per week .my wife works in a care home and earns the princely sum of 140 pw now instead of pin money it has became our only source of income me my wife and teenage daughter will have to survive on this not taking my wifes expenses for work .can this be right? ed

[honeybee13]

This sounds awful for you, I'm sorry. Not all the caggers are here at the moment and I won't comment myself because I don't know enough about this. Someone will be along soon, don't worry.

 

My best.

[ErikaPNP]

There are two parts to JSA. There is contributions based, which is based upon your National Insurance contributions in the qualifying years (the qualifying years are the two tax years previous to the calander year in which you claimed), cna be reduced/nullified depending on some types of income (occupational pension for example). And there is Income Based, which is payable based upon the income of the household, reduced for household income and savings/capital.

 

Have you had a full benefits check to see if you are claiming all of the benefits you are entitled to? Your local council will have a department which can help with this. It can be called the income maximisation service/welfare rights/money advice.

[bod1888]

i was self emloyed for 8 years previous to this

[privatehudson]

Unfortunately self employed people usually pay a different type of national insurance contributions to that required for Contribution Based JSA (usually class 2 or 4 whereas JSA © requires class 1). Because of this you probably would not qualify for any payments on contribution based JSA.

 

As for income based the government sets a level which it says a couple require to live on, if a couple is above this level they will not usually get any money, if they are below it but have some income this income will be compared to the level the government have set and you will receive a "top-up" to reach that level. This might well explain why the award amount is so paltry. A couple usually get about £110 a week on JSA, so its not surprising to see how much they have "awarded" you.

 

However you might want to check if you qualify for Tax Credits to help with the costs of having a child living with you. You may also be eligible for Housing Benefit or Council Tax benefit which may help you as well. Jobseekers allowance is not designed to cover housing costs or the costs of having children, so just because your JSA allowance is minimal does not mean you are not entitled to any help at all.

[Mydogsawestie]

We were in a similar situation to you last year, despite my husband prev having paid NI contributions for many years being SEmployed he could not get anything on JSA & I was expected to maintain everything for our family of 4 on my part time wage. All he got when he signed on was his NI stamp (it cost him more to travel there & pay parking aswell) have you had a look on the Entitled to website to see what else you could claim for?

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