Help? Friend expected to live on 70p a week benefits?

mrcol1000

I wonder if someone can help me. My friend has recently lost their job. His wife works 20 hours a week and earns approx £500 a calander month. They are childless and own their own home but it is mortagaged. They rang a benefits help-line and were told that they were entitled to council tax benefit and 70p a week in Job Seekers Allowance. I checked this on an on-line benefit checker and I get the same result apart from it says 70p a week Income Support. Surely they must be entitiled to something? They are in their 30's and both worked since 16.

cabbage

If he has a complete NI record for the last two tax years he should be able to claim contribution based Jobseekers allowance. This is £65.45 per week and is payable for six months/28 weeks and his wife's earnings won't affect that amount. If he hasn't got a complete NI record and everyone is in good health then he's looking at income based JSA which will take into account his wife's earnings. He should after a qualifying period get help with his mortgage interest on income based jsa which will help. The way it works is that every one has a personal allowance, then premiums are added depending on circumstances. If you have more coming in than these amounts combined, you don't get the benefit.

You can't get income support generally unless you are a lone parent of a young child, a carer etc - in general have a good reason not to look for work. JSA is paid at the same rate as Income support but you have to look for work. Perhaps they need to go to their CAB or Welfare Rights office. just to double check their circumstances.

Jowo_2

Look at the Shelter website which has a section to advise home owners struggling to pay their mortgage and provides info on the various mortgage assistance schemes. It has advice on how to prevent mortgage arrears and repossession.

ecoelle

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it looks about right. When myhubby was made redundant we were in the same situation as your friend. We got 6 months JSA then nothing at all and i was earning £400 every 4 weeks. So we had £400 to live on...the good news, if we'd have been renting we were told they would have paid our rent for us?!? Where's the inccentive to work hard, save and buy a house? I feel really sorry for your friend, but definately look into the JSA.

mrcol1000

ecoelle wrote: »

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it looks about right. When myhubby was made redundant we were in the same situation as your friend. We got 6 months JSA then nothing at all and i was earning £400 every 4 weeks. So we had £400 to live on...the good news, if we'd have been renting we were told they would have paid our rent for us?!? Where's the inccentive to work hard, save and buy a house? I feel really sorry for your friend, but definately look into the JSA.

After I left university I was told that in order to sign on my partner at the time would have to attend with me. When I pointed out the time was when she was working I was told she'd have to quit her job in order for me to sign on while I find a job?!?! I found a job on my own without useless job centre.
Your right though if you don't have kids and lose your job then your just abandonded. I don't blame single mothers for knocking out as many kids as they can.
Thanks for everyones help. I will pass on the info about contrubition based JSA as that sounds the best route to go. Trying to get him a job where I work so hopefully this will be stop gap.

MrsManda

mrcol1000 wrote: »

After I left university I was told that in order to sign on my partner at the time would have to attend with me. When I pointed out the time was when she was working I was told she'd have to quit her job in order for me to sign on while I find a job?!?!

You got some bad advice or you misunderstood. You would have had to make a joint claim if you didn't have enough N.I. contributions to get contribution based JSA but this just means that they take your partner's income/savings into account as well as your own when assessing your claim.

MrsManda

JSA is paid either as contribution based providing a person has paid enough N.I. contributions (self-employed contributions don't generally count) or if a person has not paid enough N.I. contributions they can apply for income based.
Income based will take into consideration any savings which the couple have.

Though you don't get cash with Council Tax Benefit it can still free up quite a bit of income.

Person_one

101 wrote: »

There's plenty of jobs knocking about before Christmas, tell him to get one.

Lots of jobs knocking about but 200 people applying to each one.

Jowo_2

101 wrote: »

There's plenty of jobs knocking about before Christmas, tell him to get one.

A lot of the recruitment was completed several months back and the staff are already in place.

I helped a friend recently who was hoping to secure temporary work who was open minded about the nature of the work and we struggled to find many seasonal vacancies. This included looking at the direct recruitment sites of dozens of retailers and the job centre.

There is an increase in waiter/bar staff roles but 99% request experience. There were some care roles but 99% requested experience, an NVQ and/or own transport. There were some security roles but 99% requested experience and an SIA licence.

This left pitiful employment (self) 'opportunities' like telemarketing, selling goods door to door via catalogues, becoming a Chugger and so forth.

RAS

Jowo wrote: »

There were some care roles but 99% requested experience, an NVQ and/or own transport.

Be very careful with these as most pay a pitiful mileage if any, do not pay for time spent travelling between clients and are essentially zero hours contracts.

There is no guarantee of work and it is likely to be short sessions at intervals in the morning, nothing, then a rush at lunch-time followed by nothing until the evening, when they get several sessions which overlap.

So the worker could get a few hours pay but be on and off duty any time from 6am to 8pm day after day. Which makes finding other work to tie in and push up the hours almost impossible.

Indie_Kid

Your friend isn't expected to live on 70p a week - or does his wife not share her money with him?

Can the wife bump her hours to 30? if she's over 25, they may get working tax credits.