income support why so hard to get?

Chrysalis

Please tell me if I have this right.

If you have worked for the best part of a year before falling ill and then lose your job and are single and have no kids, you dont qualify for income support and as such can only get incapacity benefit. Incapacity benefit does not entitle you to max housing benefit etc. and once you start recieving anything above JSA level housing benefit make deductions.

Take a different person tho who has never worked or not worked enough and because of that they dont qualify for incapacity benefit, but they get the superior income support instead this of course provides them freebies and allows them to continue to get max housing benefit when their income support is higher then JSA.

The only difference between these 2 situations is one person previously worked and other not, but the 1st person may well have no savings and have the exact same financial problems as the 2nd but because they previously worked they are treated very differently.

Am I the only one thinking that this is messed up and people claiming if they qualify for both should be given income support instead of incapacity benefit, likewise with JSA if they qualify for income based and contribution based they should be given income based instead of the inferior version.

If I am wrong please explain thanks.

chugalug

I never understood why someone on IB doesn't qualify for free prescriptions bearing in mind they must be ill to qualify for IB. I suppose it's because IS is the absolute bottom of the benefits pile, it's the last resort and incredibly hard to get. IB is awarded if you're incapable of work and have paid NI contributions in the correct tax year. It's slightly higher than IS which is why HB make a small deduction - cos the Govt give the same personal allowance to live on which ever benefit you claim. The bottom line is, the Govt doesn't want anyone claiming benefits and tries to discourage it as much as possible. The only difference is if you claim IB maybe you don't get looked on as a 'scrounger' cos its obvious you've contributed but if you have to claim IS............who knows?

Fran

Apparently from 2008 it will be "Employment & Support Allowance". BBC News

That will confuse people even more, some people still refer to "Invalidity Benefit" and other older names they used to call different benefits. It sounds to me like they are trying to draw a line between what they call "severely disabled" and the rest (who should be in work?). Certainly people will have more pressure put on them when claiming benefits, not helpful to people who are genuinely sick or disabled.

The_Geek

Fran wrote:

Certainly people will have more pressure put on them when claiming benefits, not helpful to people who are genuinely sick or disabled.

I agree, unfortunately this is as a result of all those people out there who are fraudlently claiming benefits or "too ill to work" yet somehow manage to get themselves to the pub/bingo.

A case of the few messing it up for everyone else.

singlehouseholder

If you claim IB and complete and SC1?? You will get free scripts and the like. The reason that you don't automatically qualify is because IB is paid at a slightly higher rate than your bog standard IS.
Thats why for some out there, its far more economically viable to visit their GP and obtain a medcert.
Its a sorry state of affairs....

beanielou

IS is not v difficult to get, it is just means tested.
A single person with savings under the threshold will get approx £54.

Chrysalis

beanielou they wont because IB pays that 54 so you fail the means test.

That single person if worked recently (which is what I am talking about someone who has NI credits) if walked into a job centre and asked for IS would be told to claim for Contribution based JSA or if ill IB. The only time they are excluded is when appealing a IB termination and then they get IS 20% deducted. What the news fails to show is that people on IB will be a lot worse off then people on IS because they dont get extra help unless they have special circumstances.

Like I said its treated as income the same as if you was working. I am not sure IB is actually higher then IS as when my sister fell ill she got IS the same rate as IB but just IS instead because she had no tax credits. Last time I checked the bottom rate of IB was a few pence higher then IS and IS rises alongside long rate IB so their is very little difference in that regard just that IS qualifies you for extra help.

I am aware of the HC forms and they give you the nhs help but they are something extra the sick person has to do and the DWP hardly advertises it, they are a sort of a low key way of extra help.

I think the government also with their new proposed benefits in 2008 will cause more problems they just dont believe people can have lesser illnesses that arent outrigt terminal or disabled but enough to stop someone from working so they only see in black and white and no grey areas, or they simply dont want to. Where do all the people with undiagnosed illnesses stand eg.?

Chrysalis

quote from DWP site

"If you are sick and not getting Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) you should claim Incapacity Benefit as well as Income Support."

So the double claim goes in and they then means test you for the IS claim including your IB income which would fail the means test and not qualify.