Job seekers allowance - Help please.

sunnyone

s1h wrote: »

Can you explain how my predicament is my fault? Is it because I chose a career that has given me 2 redundancies in 3 years? Is it because I took the offer of a days work rather than sitting around at home? Why is it my fault?

How can you even comment on the job centre if you have never even had any contact with them?

So you have found work straight away after your first redundancy and after the second you have signed on without reading any of the information sent out with your P45 or JSA, but thats not your fault?

People in my family have been made redundant before and they have asked me for help, not with JC+ but with reading and understanding the paperwork.

sunnyone

s1h

sunnyone wrote: »

So you have found work straight away after your first redundancy and after the second you have signed on without reading any of the information sent out with your P45 or JSA, but thats not your fault?

People in my family have been made redundant before and they have asked me for help, not with JC+ but with reading and understanding the paperwork.

sunnyone

There is no reasoning with someone like you. If you cannot see that it is harder to get a job now than it was a few years ago then you are blind. Don't bother replying I have no interest in what you have to say.

tsstss7

S1h - I've been where you are so I know how it feels. People on this board are a bit anti benefits so please don't take it to heart. Prob the best thing to so is to see it as a lesson learned (about job centre staff advice as much as anything).

While claiming JSA you can work up to 16 hours without signing off (so you are getting you NI stamp paid etc as a minimum) but after an initial disregarded amount of about £5.00 (might be £7.50 now I'm not sure) you will get your JSA amount docked on a pound for pound basis. This does unfortunately mean you will be worse off financially if you earn the same as IS amount for that week but spend more than the disregard on travel/work related expences.

missymugwump

Great constructive post

cherry1000

my partner claims jobseekers allowance for both of us at the moment we are simply not qualified for any positions out there in our area it upsets me to me think that people believe we are scroungers when we are doing everything possible to provide for our child there is a stigma attached to the benefits system and i want people to realise not everyone who claims actually wants to claim but needs to i sympathise and hope people agree there are a lot of us out there in this situation x

SuziQ

I have a lot of sympathy with the OP. Firstly I consider myself reasonably intelligent-I am a trained Nurse,Midwife and Health Visitor and have the best part of a degree ,yet I have enormous difficulty in understanding a lot of the benefit paperwork and often have to come on here for clarification! I have been given lots of inaccurate info over the 'phone-especially from CTC-and have had to go back and argue with the info the fantastic free advice advisors on here give up their time for. My CTC paperwork frequently comes out with inaccurate figures that relate to 3 years ago to when I was still living with my husband and we were both still employed and often I am totally bemused by the workings out on these myriad forms.

The staff in my JCP centre are all lovely and pleasant,but when I went to a review with my lone parent advisor I was shocked to be told that they would not help me even with a loan to do a refresher course to get back into nursing,midfwifery or health visiting,but could GIVE me a course for the same value in a totally unrelated area where I could earn a lot less.

Added to this, I took out insurance for a loan with barclays 4 years ago,and have to have a form signed by IS every month to prove I am still in receipt. My jobcentre can't do it as they do not deal with IS. Over the last 10 months this has proved to be one of the most stressful parts of all of this, as posted ones go missing despite being sent SD,forms sent via the jobcentre internally also go missing. On one occasion I had 5 identical forms sent back to me, all stapled together and signed-according to the people I had spoken to they had never arrived but obviously they had been sitting on someones desk.On one memorable day before Christmas I spent a total of 5 hour in my local jobcentre plus on the phone to try to sort this same problem out,and finally the manager at the centre got on the phone and faxed the form to the manager at IS and waited for the fax to come back as she was frustrated and bemused as me as to why it should be so difficult! Last month I managed finally to get someone on the 'phone who determined to help me,accepted the faxed form and sent it out that evening-she has done the same for me again today. Why couldn't that have happened from the start? She told me today she is being redeployed next month so that I won't be able to have her help again

I know what it's like to work in a huge public funded and struggling organisation after 30 years working in the NHS but what strikes me is the general apathy I experience from workers in the benefit system.

bestpud

tsstss7 wrote: »

While claiming JSA you can work up to 16 hours without signing off (so you are getting you NI stamp paid etc as a minimum) but after an initial disregarded amount of about £5.00 (might be £7.50 now I'm not sure) you will get your JSA amount docked on a pound for pound basis. This does unfortunately mean you will be worse off financially if you earn the same as IS amount for that week but spend more than the disregard on travel/work related expences.

This is what I've been thinking as I've read this thread.

Technically, the information you received was correct, in that a days work would not stop you signing on and claiming JSA that week. Or in other words, it would not mean you having to sign off and back on again.

However they failed to ensure you understood it will affect how much you receive that week.

The issue with the wage slip is separate from this and I can see why you feel it wasn't worth the effort.

I think it would be easier in the future though, as you now know what to expect, and how to avoid some of the pitfalls you have come up against this time?

s1h

Well I have just phoned them.

And suprise suprise the processing team "cannot advise me on this" they have to send an email to another department who will call me back.

So now im waiting around like a mug all day for them to ring. Great.

missymugwump

At least were here to moan ?
There is always someone worse off

This obviously a stressful time for you
I hope it improves soon

sunnyone

s1h wrote: »

There is no reasoning with someone like you. If you cannot see that it is harder to get a job now than it was a few years ago then you are blind. Don't bother replying I have no interest in what you have to say.

I have no intrest in your bleating that its everyones elses fault when it is clearly your fault, YOU DIDNT READ THE PAPER WORK AND YOU ARE PAYING THE PRICE.

Unempoyment is rising and the jobs market is very tight at the minute but there are jobs out there, my OH had an accident at work last year and he was sacked, he started a new job in Febuary. He drives over 70 miles each way to get to work and back but there is no work where we live so he has no choice in it. We barely see each other but the bills are paid.

sunnyone