JSA Question

Mrs_P_Pincher

A friend of mine who is 63 has just been made redundant. He is looking for work. He asked at the Job Centre about JSA and was told that as he has income from two private pensions, he was not entitled to anything.

He queried this and they have now said he is entitled to £4.00 something a week.

I still think he is entitled to contribution based JSA for 26 weeks at the full whack and I am concerned that our Job Centre has a policy of not telling people about contribution based benefits as the same thing has happened to other people that I know.

Any comments anyone? Am I completely off target on this one?

Mrs P P

Russe11

You make a claim for either contribution based or income based, rules differ surrounding making either an income based claim or a contribution based claim.

It may be the case that because he has made a income based claim you can't then claim contributions based.

You can how ever claim contribution based then go onto income based after 26 weeks.

MrsManda

It may be that the income from his pensions is higher than the 'prescribed amount of earnings'.

Claimants are not entitled to JSA(Cont) for any week that they have earnings that are higher than the prescribed amount (see DMG 21060 3.)1.
1 JS Act 95, s 2(1)(c)
The prescribed amount of the claimant's earnings is calculated by using the formula1 (A + D) - £0.01 where
1.
A is the age-related amount that is appropriate to the claimant's age and
2.
D is any earnings disregard appropriate to the claimant

From the Decision Maker's guide Chapter 21
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch21.pdf

Mrs_P_Pincher

Thank you Mrs Manda - that will be it.

Mrs P P

jfdi

Or alternatively it could be because Occupational & Private Pensions are taken into account for JSA (C) calculations.........

Any Pension income (gross) over £50pw is subtracted from JSA (C) - can't find the Link now - so if he's entitled to about £4 JSA pw, I'd guess his gross Pensions income is about £110?

cassieB57

MrsManda wrote: »

It may be that the income from his pensions is higher than the 'prescribed amount of earnings'.

From the Decision Maker's guide Chapter 21
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/dmgch21.pdf

..Except occupational pension isn't earnings.

jfdi is correct: the first £50 per week of an occp is taken into account from JSAc-all of it for income based (DMG part 28, paras 28090&91-but I don't know how to post a link sorry) (MrsM the link you posted was chapter 21 which is to do with labour market questions, not income or earnings)