Jsa

roysterer

I am in the process of being made redundant and would like to know what my entitlement is. Luckily I've been in full time employment since leaving school 34 yrs ago so this is new territory to me.
I will get redundancy pay and I have savings that will amount to over 20K.
I am lead to believe that I am entitled to contribution based J S A for 6 months, my wife works 15 hours a week (low paid) part time, question is can I claim any money for my wife because she works less than 16hrs a week? or am I only entitled to my own JSA of about £60 a week.
I dont want anyone thinking I am a scrounger, nothing could be further from the truth. I just hope I dont have to claim anything and manage to get another job, but at the moment I am just taking stock and preparing for the worse.
2 children age 15 and 18, eldest away at university.
Greatful for any advice, thanks in advance.

LittleVoice

JSA is not augmented for dependents.
If you haven't found a job in six months' time, savings of £20K would probably mean you wouldn't get income based JSA - except you are very likely to need to spend some of that capital during six months of unemployment.

Also try the entitled to website - http://www.entitledto.co.uk/ .

Ocean007

If you do sign on for JSA you may be eligible to claim Council Tax Benefit, sorry I don't know for sure as I'm not sure if your wife's work will affect it, but definitely worth asking about.

After 13 weeks of claiming JSA you are eligible to claim SMI (Support for Mortgage Interest) after 13 weeks. Details here... http://www.dwp.gov.uk/resourcecentre/mortgage-interest-changes.pdf

All the best with the job hunt.

Voyager2002

No: savings over fifteen grand disqualify you for Council Tax Benefit.

Do contact the Tax Credits people and let them know your new situation. You should already be getting some money in the form of Child Tax Credit: with the loss of income this is likely to increase by a fair whack. And your wife might also be able to get some Working Families' Tax Credit.