JSA contribution based not allowed to claim ?

junkimunki

Hi everyone!
I am actually hoping that someone can answer my question, My son who has been working thru an agency since 2009, whereby he is responsible for paying his own contributions, but his tax is stopped before he receives his wage.

Prior to this he was working for Severn Trent Water on Paye for at least 3 years, during the period he has been working thru the agency, he has had weeks whereby he has not had any work but has not claimed JSA until he has been without work for a minimum of 2weeks, he did claim JSA for a period of time during 2009.

At the time he was a single person and claimed JSA contribution Based. In July 2010 he got married, since getting married he has had some work but now he has been without work for above 2 weeks, and has reluctantly on advice claimed JSA.

He was only going to claim for himself under contibution based whilst seeking employment as his wife works as a civil servant 3 days per week.
On attending the local jobcentre for a claim interview he was told that because he was now married and had a wife and 2 children to support he would be better claiming income based JSA.

However after filling in of numerous forms and the production of his wifes relevant wage slips, they were told that his wifes earnings as a part time civil servant was just above the threshold which the government says is enough for a family with 2 children to live on.

As they are buying the property they live in they pay mortgage on the property every month which would have to come out of his wifes earnings as well as feed and clothe his family with no extr help from the job centre, had they been in council accommodation things then would have been different as they would have had their rent paid as well as their council tax plus have the minimum amount allowed by the government.

His wife and himself had a request from the local job centre to attend an interview , whereby on the relevation of the above his wife told them that it was the Job centre who told them to claim income based in the first place, and as they did not qualify for income based , my son stated that he would just claim for himself by way of Contribution based JSA.

They were then told that :
[A] he could not claim contibution based as he was now married ,
that even if he could claim Contribution based JSA, becaus of the little time he had spent on JSA during 2009, he now did not have enough contribution stamps to claim, as they further stated that whilst receiving his JSA in 2009 the DWP had paid his contribution stamp but this was only counted as a credit and not as a paid contribution.

My understanding of this is that whilst ever you are claiming JSA from the DWP you would automatically receive a class 1 stamp up to the minimum needed for that year and these credits would be deemed as being paid therefore giving you the contributions needed to claim the benefits.

As he only spent a minimum amount of time during 2009 claiming JSA[contribution based] then he is entitled to claim JSA for himslef only, and the relevant tax years needed to satify his claim would not be based upon 2009 's contibutions alone as benefit and tax years are different by way of having to use the 2 years previous to the benfit year in which you are claiming if this is correct then the contribution years neede to fulfil his benefit claim would be 2007/2008 + 2008/2009 tax years, and I do know that sine 2006 up to and including the end of 2008 he was on PAYE and has paid his contributions for 2009 with the exception of credited contributions whilst claiming JSA during 2009 , but my understanding of this was that if the DWP had credited ur contributions whilst claiming a benefit then these credits would be seen as being paid.

Surely my son has a right to claim JSA [contribution based ] for himself by way of his contributions whether his wife chooses to work or not can someone please clarify what he is entitled to.

dmg24

Why does he not put in a claim and see?

junkimunki

dmg24 wrote: »

Why does he not put in a claim and see?

this is about as informative as the DWP were :
thanx

dmg24

junkimunki wrote: »

this is about as informative as the DWP were :
thanx

No one here has access to your NI records, so we cannot give you a definitive answer. If you need further information, can you be more specific?

bunny999

If he has paid enough contributions he will be entitled. His marital status and wife's earnings are irrelevant.