Carers Allowance and the £100 earnings rule

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi

I have been a full time carer for the last 18 months and have found a job that I can fit around my sons needs. I am only going to be working 8-10 hours a week so will be unlikely to earn over £100 a week but what would happen if I did extra hours and went over £100 occasionally?

I will be paid monthly so is it averaged out somehow? I will be paid an hourly rate rather than salaried and my hours might vary slightly.

I have tried to find the answer online and I will ring up tomorrow but wondered if anyone on here knew.

pmlindyloo

There is a good overview here:

http://www.nhs.uk/CarersDirect/moneyandlegal/carersbenefits/Pages/CarersAllowance.aspx

Scroll down and click on Carers and Earnings.

It seems that they may average out your earnings but I should be ready to produce your pay slips.

Did you realise that there are certain deductions you can make to your earnings?

Tax
NI contributions
Pension contributions
Necessary expenses for your work
Up to half of your earnings to pay someone to look after your child (not a close relative)

It's all in the link.

YORKSHIRELASS

Wow there is some really interesting stuff on that website - thank you. Not sure why I havent come across that before. Its really daunting going back into work again and I need to make sure I am not going to be worse off financially. I may build up my hours and lose the carers allowances anyway in the future but a lot depends on my sons health.

over_flo

I was told that if you are normally paid monthly , they will allow an average over the month .

Beware of notifying them too soon.

I enquired several weeks before actually starting my job and found that the instantly suspended my payments of CA until i sent in my payslips ,which of course i was unable to do for many weeks.
I got it back eventually but it could have really caused my family serious hardship if we hadn't got some savings to fall back on.