Unemployment benefits for my wife

AyeReady1985

Hi all,

I work full time and bring home around £1120.00 per month. My wife is currently unemployed, she was made redundant shortly before she got pregnant with our son and she was unable to get a job before she gave birth. She was awared contribution based job seekers allowance at this time, however she got a letter stating her contributions had now ran out shortly before her maternity allowance payments began.

She is currently getting maternity allowance of £540.00 per month as she worked enough weeks in the qualifying period. In addition to this we get child tax credits which total £40.00 per month and £80.00 child benefit.

My worry is that my wife's maternity allowance will run out at the start of January 2013 however I do not think she will be eligible for any other benefits. If her contributions ran out for job seekers allowance I am assuming any further claim will now be unsuccesful. Also we applied for Housing benefit in the past with no success.

Due to my income we wont qualify for income support. I dont really know what to do as my salary pays for the majority of the bills and we will have very little left to support a family of 3.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

mazza111

http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

Tax Credits or back to work seem to be the only options for you. Putting your details into the above system will give u an idea if there's anything you can expect.


There will probably be a change in the tax credits when the maternity pay stops.

mazza111

Done a quick search on it with your income, although without accurate details and it says..

WTC 34.33 weekly

CTC 62.09 weekly

AyeReady1985

Thanks for your comments guys. I dont think we would qualify for WTC and my will have earned too much through her maternity allowance for the period April 12-13. I tried the calculator and no luck.

The problem with back to work is we would need to pay for childcare which would possibly cost more than my wife would earn which would mean that we would struggle even more.

AyeReady1985

I am not sure actually, when filling in the form it asked for our income between April 11-12 and we put my wife's salary in for that period which will no longer apply. I would have thought we wont be able to reapply until April therefore will have to look into whether or not MA should be included or not. Cheers

mazza111

But when the MA stops you call them up and inform them of a change of circumstances. That's when the extra TC will kick in

AyeReady1985

mazza111 wrote: »

But when the MA stops you call them up and inform them of a change of circumstances. That's when the extra TC will kick in

Thanks Mazza, I didnt realise you could report a change in circumstances.:)