JSA virgin - advice please.

travelodger

My friend is a single man living alone and has worked for over 30 years. He is being made redundant in November. He's just paid off his mortgage. He will get £6k redundancy money. He has no savings bar a few hundred in premium bonds. HIs town is one with very high unemployment and his chances of getting a job at his age are rather small.

We know he can get contribution-based JSA of £65 a week. And that is just about all we know! So can anyone tell us this:

1. Will he have to present all his bank statements, premium bonds, etc to get the CB JSA?

2. £65pw won't be enough to cover his household bills, food, car loan payments, private pension contributions and other essentials. He'll have to use the £6,000 to supplement this. What happens if he still hasn't got a job when the £6k runs out? If he cannot keep himself on £65pw is he entitled to any extra at all? Or will they make him sell his flat and live off the equity?

3. Is there anything he can do between now and November to improve or secure his position or entitlements?

Thank you.

Lady_gaga

He may be entitled to council tax benefit as well as his JSA, but as far as I can see he won't be eligible for anything else, debt and bills are not taken into acount, he will have to come to some sort of arangement to pay them off with the lenders.

Indie_Kid

CBJSA isn't based on income. So, you could have a partner who works 30 hours a week and still be entitled to CBJSA.

viktory

sh1305 wrote: »

CBJSA isn't based on income. So, you could have a partner who works 30 hours a week and still be entitled to CBJSA.

Not terribly helpful to the OP as they have already advised that their friend is single.

OP, yes, your friend will have to live off his savings and once they are all gone will have to manage on JSA and CTB.

travelodger

Thanks everyone for the replies.

We're hoping he won't be on the dole for 6 months so hopefully it won't come to it.

Another question, he has worked all his life in one profession for which he trained and qualified in the late 1970s, but which has only a small handful of vacancies in each town. There are currently no vacancies in his town nor are there likely to be in the near future (he's contacted ALL possible employers) until someone dies, retires or moves towns. There are currently four vacancies nationwide, but none within commuting distance.

Will the jobcentre expect him to (on pain of losing benefit):-

1. Change professions in his 50s.

2. Sell his flat and move to wherever the work is, leaving his elderly mother and his girlfriend (me!) behind?

3. Take any minimum wage job in the area.

Robbie64

travelodger wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the replies.

We're hoping he won't be on the dole for 6 months so hopefully it won't come to it.

Another question, he has worked all his life in one profession for which he trained and qualified in the late 1970s, but which has only a small handful of vacancies in each town. There are currently no vacancies in his town nor are there likely to be in the near future (he's contacted ALL possible employers) until someone dies, retires or moves towns. There are currently four vacancies nationwide, but none within commuting distance.

Will the jobcentre expect him to (on pain of losing benefit):-

1. Change professions in his 50s.

2. Sell his flat and move to wherever the work is, leaving his elderly mother and his girlfriend (me!) behind?

3. Take any minimum wage job in the area.

He will (within reason) be able to restrict his job search for the first 13 weeks on Jobseekers Allowance to both his normal occupation and wage expectations. After that he will be expected to broaden his horizons to seek work outside his normal work and wage levels.

He won't have to sell his flat nor leave you behind!

travelodger

Thank you Robbie.

"seek work outside his normal work and wage levels"

And would this include taking, say, a minimum-wage type job?

Lady_gaga

travelodger wrote: »

Thank you Robbie.

"seek work outside his normal work and wage levels"

And would this include taking, say, a minimum-wage type job?

After 13 weeks you are expected to look outwith your normal type of job/salary, surely though if he has no mortgage even a minimum wage job has to be bettere than what JSA pays?

travelodger

Yes indeed Lady Gaga but there's not just money to be considered. It can be quite stressful for a man in his fifties who's worked hard to get his qualifications and then spent a third of a century holding professional status to contemplate working on the till at B&Q. It would pretty much be a waste of his talents, too, of course, and he'd be bored, unstimulated, maybe even depressed; but these things are irrelevant to this thread, which is about the benefits system which to him is a mysterious maze and a worrying minefield.

dmg24

travelodger wrote: »

Yes indeed Lady Gaga but there's not just money to be considered. It can be quite stressful for a man in his fifties who's worked hard to get his qualifications and then spent a third of a century holding professional status to contemplate working on the till at B&Q. It would pretty much be a waste of his talents, too, of course, and he'd be bored, unstimulated, maybe even depressed; but these things are irrelevant to this thread, which is about the benefits system which to him is a mysterious maze and a worrying minefield.

He will find it much more stressful, demeaning etc to be long term unemployed. There is much more pride to be gained from working in B&Q than to be waiting for a job that by your own admission is unlikely to happen.

travelodger

That certainly is true, Lady G. He's never been unemployed, it will hit him really hard. As you say, worse if no job at all. Where's B&Q's number? (lol)

Apparently there are no govt re-training schemes or anything till you have been on the dole 2 years?