Income support advise please

jlb1924

I posted on here a few months ago after becomming a single mum with 3 children aged 8, 5, 3

I currently work 20hrs week (low salary) and posted to say would I be better off giving up work and going on income support. To which I was slated but take on the comments given.

I have not been back to work yet as signed off with depression but am hoping to return to work on reduced hours to help me out.

Question I have is that I want to reduce my hours from 20 to 12hrs a week to which I presume income support will cut in. The reason for wanting income support is because it seems to be the golden benefit which gets things like free school meals (currently I am paying £80 month on school meals), however I confused on how I work out how much I will actually get with income support if I reduce my hours to 12.

Can anyone assist?

Many thanks

karenx

You will only get to keep £20 per week of your wages and you wont get WTC or any help towards childcare either. Plus only £20 per week of child maintenance. So that would be income support of £64 plus the £40 and your child tax credits and child benefit.

Indie_Kid

That would also depend on how much per hour you receive.

jlb1924

thank you so much for your quick replies.

I think if I reduced my hours to 12 per week I would take home around £70per week. I know I would loose my working tax credits but I think my child tax credit would increase and I would also get full housing and council tax benefit (at the moment I have to pay around £200 towards rent and £30 towards council tax).

So if I was earning £70 a week how would income support work, I understand they disregard the first £20 as I am a lone parent with 3 very young children, but how do they work the rest out?

Thank you so much

jlb1924

I forgot to add I dont get any maintenance payments for my children.

jlb1924

When I used entitled to calculator I put in that I was working 12hrs per week giving me an annual salary of around £3812.00 a year and it came out with a calculation of:
£139.23 child tax credits a week
£11.18 Income support per week
£46.40 child benefit per week
Full housing and council tax benefit
But did not say anything about what I would get from work so would I get my £70 a week from work plus the £11.18 income support?

so sorry for so many questions but I need to be fairly sure before I reduce my hours.

Many many thanks

Indie_Kid

jlb1924 wrote: »

But did not say anything about what I would get from work so would I get my £70 a week from work plus the £11.18 income support?

Your income from work would be too low for you to pay tax & NI.

dookar

You would get IS - (wage-£20)

so they knock £20 off your wages leaving £50 and then deduct that from the IS.

jlb1924

To Dookar

So would that mean I would get my wages of £70 and IS of £16.00? Ie income support would be my wages of £70 less £20 leaving £50 then IS of £64.40 less £50 wages leaving £16.00 income support?

If that is correct then by reducing my hours to 12 I will be worst off by nearly £100 a month but then if I off set that by the fact that I wont have to pay school meals which is currently costing me £80 and my son has just taken up playing the cello which the school want £60 for the term but if I was on IS it would be free, so if I add up what extras I get on IS I am best dropping my hours, loosing working tax credits and getting IS.

I know I will loose child care costs on IS but my youngest daughter will be fully funded by Easter so I wont have to pay her costs at nursery anyway and the other child care I use is my mum to which I dont get support with anyway. So maybe I am better off working less hours and claiming IS?

exil

Many Income Support benefits are also available if you're on WTC, you need to ask

Macro_3

Free school meals are available in some areas for families low incomes/working tax credits.

The best option would be to send your children to school with packed lunches - can be done for a couple of pounds per head per week - and working as many hours as possible. I'd be damned if I'd let a few free fish fingers sway me from providing a better life and financial stability for my children through work.