Employment and Housing Benefit/JSA query

dustinjames

hi
Have never understood what diff types of employment does to housing benefit and other benefits.

Say if housing benefit is being cut by £50 per week for me.
If the shortfall in rent is £50, would that simply mean a job that a part time job that pays £50 would solve problem?

ie. full time job would mean you can afford all your rent, so no housing benefit, correct? Would a part time job mean you still get housing benefit to make ends meet?

I dont understand the diff employment scenarios.

Whats maximum you can earn per week/month and still qualify for full housing benefit entitlement?

What no of hours/wage will allow me to afford/pay my rent, with help of housing benefit. ? (with basic living costs afforded)eg ESA £65 pw has been fine for food and bills ive found)

Would a part time job be enough to live/survive, ie part time wage + housing benefit (so all rent paid) + food + bill (being helped by JSA?) ie less than 16hrs per week job.

Spoke to someone at council once, but didnt understand what they meant. They said somethign along the lines of 'if you need to make a £50 shortfall in rent now, getting a p/t job paying £50 is not going to work, need to work more hours, at least 20hrs to make it worthwhile, if you earn £80 you dont get JSA, .... working tax credit can help, be available, you dont want to work for less than 16 hours, its not worth it".
I dont understand this. Can someone please explain.

ive been on ESA, having just failed an atos medical, now about to appeal, but cant afford to live after the Single to Shared HB cut, so need to move to cheaper accommodation or attempt employment. Basically stressed and dont know what to do. Im in a bad position now and have been living on basics and making sacrifices, and dont want to be in a worse position in near future, ie evicted, or homeless, getting in arrears, or even less income if i get a p/t job and the affect that has.

Thankyou

MrsManda

I'm not sure how different income affects benefits so hopefully someone else will be able to give you some more information but in the meantime it may be of help to you to put your details into one of the benefits calculators to model different situations.
http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

https://www.dwpe-services.direct.gov.uk/portal/page/portal/ba/lp?_piref278_36249_278_36248_36248.__ora_navig=

It may be worth speaking to a specialist benefits advisor at CAB or the JCP.

BigAunty

You can model different income scenarios in the Turn2us online benefit calculator.

You won't get JSA on top of your employment income if you are working. As far as I know, for single claimants the first £5 of what you earn is disregarded but anything after that is deducted £ for £.

Even if you had full time employment, you still may struggle to afford the top up between your rent and any LHA due as £50 a week is a significant sum to find.
For single claimants over the age of 25 who work a minimum of 30 hours a week may be entitled to a modest amount of tax credits on top.

Many people in employment, even full time, can qualify for LHA. However, if there is such a big difference between the LHA rate and your rent, you will always have that lag to begin with.

HappyMJ

Annoyingly if you earn £50 more than your personal allowance then they take your benefit away. I am self employed not earning at great deal of profit. I can earn a maximum of £37.50 profit each week on average over 52 weeks along with the £52.11 of working tax credits so I get a total of £89.61 per week. I have a personal allowance of £67.50 a weekly disregard of £5 and an additonal earnings disregard of £17.10 which totals £89.60. Any extra profit I earn to cover the shortfall in my rent would reduce my housing and council tax benefit by 85 pence in the pound.

As you are on JSA they would allow you to keep the first £5 (can be a different amount depending on your personal cirumstances) then they take your JSA away pound for pound.

So they sound as if they are correct in the advice you must find work of at least 20 hours per week at minimum wages along with tax credits to cover the shortfall to be worth doing as long as you don't have any additional costs in taking the employment such as travel to pay.