PLEASE HELP!! Self Employment and JSA

concerned43

To stop getting JSA you would need to be working 16 hours or more so yes you can still claim JSA but you would need to declare all to them and they would ask to see prove of payments received to you. They would only allow you to keep about £5 pw of JSA money.

concerned43

It would not mess up your JSA as you are not coming off JSA! the payments centre at JC+ would adjust payments to you accordingly

concerned43

Best think to do is tell JC+ that you have been offered a couple of hours work p/w and how much you expect to earn. Tell them that you will still be claiming JSA as the hours are under 16 p/w.
They will them be able to tell you all the information they will need from you.

concerned43

PS - if you work roughly the same hours per month and get paid at the end of the month (same time each month) - by law - you are considered 'employed'.
This is under the European work directive!

L_Blue

Ok, thank you. I just thought the whole "self employment" thing made a difference to the type of JSA you get....

concerned43

There are only two types of JSA: contribution based and income based. Are you getting help with your debt?

LittleVoice

L_Blue wrote: »

Ok, thank you. I just thought the whole "self employment" thing made a difference to the type of JSA you get....

As I understand it, self-employment affects the ability to claim JSA only in that if you had been self-employed only and didn't have enough Class 1 contributions from PAYE work in the relevant previous years, you wouldn't be entitled to contribution-based JSA.

L_Blue

Yes I was aware of that but I thought that maybe I would have to swap to income based if I registered as SE? I am getting help as far as CCCS. I have a loan with HSBC which I am worried about...Egg were ok, they accepted my pound a month token payment but the bank hasn't. I am getting further into arrears with my loan, soon they will pass it to the debt collectors. They said they didn't receive my initial letter that I sent. Although despite this, since loosing my job I have still paid them a pound each month..

jobbingmusician

I have actually received JSA whilst being SE. (I worked as a mystery shopper). I had to fill in a form each sign day saying how much work I had done, and what actual profit I had made. This is one of the advantages of SE, you get your expenses incurred to do the work deducted before they work out how much to take off your JSA. So if you are driving to your employment, you can claim the full IR 40p a mile, for example. Little things like this make quite a difference to the money in your hand each week. Plus you have the benefits of working, building networks etc. Plus I think you get more respect from the JSA people (although they may just have been specially nice to me because they were terrified I was going to mystery shop them, even though I explained you are not allowed to shop your own office )

concerned43

You will move automatically onto income based JSA once your contribution days are up. It makes no difference whether you are on contributions or income based JSA regarding your situation and the advice given here.