Pregnant and being made redundant

sammyjo1979

I am 14 weeks pregnant and being made redundant. I want to work but am worried that company's will not want to take me on cos i'm pregnant. I know they are not supposed to discriminate but they do.

What i'm worried about is that if I cannot find a job straightaway, will I definitely get help with paying my rent/ct etc? OH is on ESA so there is very little income from him.

I'm worried sick that we won't be able to pay things and we'll loose our lovely home :embarasse

karenx

ou can sign on for ISA. And yes you will get help with your rent, untill the baby is born you will only he entitled to the 1 bedroom rate then it will change to the 2 bedroom rate. Google lha rates, and it will tell you the amount. If you manage to get another job soon you should qualify for maternity allowance which would be £123 per week for 39 weeks if you were earning more than than per week previously. If you don't manage to get a job then you won't be entitled to that.
You will get child benefit and child tax credits once baby is born too.

sammyjo1979

I have a step daughter too that stays with us on a regular basis, would that mean we'd be entitled to the 2 bedroom rate?

When I spoke to the Job Centre earlier today, they told me that if at 29 weeks, I hadn't got a job that I needed to swap over to Income Support. Does anyone know why?

I presume we'd get help with council tax too?

karenx

do you and your partner claim child benfit and tax credits for her? If not then no you wont get the 2 bedroom rate. Only once you have yours you will get it.
its because you won't be eligable for jsa after that point with being pregnant. I think its about 10 weeks or so you can stay on it after baby is born then back onto jsa and looking for a job. If you don't want to go back to work you won't be eligable jsa

sammyjo1979

No we don't claim for her, her mum does but we have her 50% of the time.
I want to try and get a job, i'd rather work.
I kind of felt today when I spoke to the Job Centre that they were advising me to go on JSA and maybe work under 15 hours. Then come 29 weeks move onto income support. They advised my partner to contact ESA and tell them his situation has changed so that he can now be on income based and not contribution based therefore allowing us to claim council tax/housing benefits.

Thank you for your quick replies. It's really appreciated! Hopefully i'll get a better nights sleep tonight

karenx

unfortunatly even because you have her half the week you still won't get 2 bedroom rate.

sammyjo1979

Well anything is better than nothing

Do you know anything about council tax benefits? Are we likely to qualify for that too? And is there a way of working out how much?

karenx

Yes you should qualify for full benefit with you being on jsa and esa.
Do you stay in Scotland? If you do you still have to pay towards water charges though

sammyjo1979

So that means a lot of my rent will be paid and all of my council tax?
Wow, that would be a great help is that's the way it is....

I live in Yorkshire, not sure what you mean about the water though? I'm presuming out of our JSA and ESA we'll have to pay the normal utility bills?

sammyjo1979

Can I ask about tax credits.... how do you qualify for them? This whole thing is going right over my head!

missmontana

sammyjo1979 wrote: »

So that means a lot of my rent will be paid and all of my council tax?
Wow, that would be a great help is that's the way it is....

I live in Yorkshire, not sure what you mean about the water though? I'm presuming out of our JSA and ESA we'll have to pay the normal utility bills?

You can ask for the water rates to be paid out from your JSA I think. I do that from my income support. They take it off fortnightly so its one less thing to worry about and you don't have to pay out a lump sum.