income based jobseekers allowance

tricklesthegreek

Hi all.
My husband has been employed for 6 weeks (not long compared to a lot I know). The job centre said after 6 months contribution based jobseekers allowance stops.
They said that he should be entitled to income based (means tested) JSA after six months. They said so long as your wife doesn't earn something mega like 50k a year (I wish!) - I am a teacher on 29k a year. With his JSA at the moment we can pay our bills - we have cut down £150 a month off of our shopping but I still need the £280 odd per month that comes from JSA.
It's causing me huge amounts of sleepless nights wondering what will happen if we don't get the income based stuff. We have no savings and we rent a house privately because we don't have kids basically it would take years to get any sort of housing help (not to mention the fact we would always rather do things off our own backs).
Obviously I am hoping and praying that he finds something, anything - but after six weeks of applying for countless jobs he's not getting anywhere and I'm actually getting physically ill over the worry of it all.
If anyone knows what kind of threshold it is then at least I can know any figure out if I need to start selling my soul or something.

In the mean time, has anyone got any ways of getting in some extra cash - £70 a week must be achievable somewhere, somehow - we have cut absolutely everything we can down but god bless our rent being high where we live there's nothing we can do to reduce our income further and moving in with our parents is not an option as they simply do not have any space as they both downsized when we left home about 10 years ago!!

Notmyrealname

If he is on income based JSA he won't get a bean with your earnings. In fact he wouldn't get anything if you earned just £6071 a year which is the amount awarded to a couple. Basically the law says a couple has to have £x to live on which is the JSA rate for couples, currently £111.75 a week. If the claimants partner earns money, this is deducted from the JSA award £1 for £1 with a £5 disregard so if the claimants partner earns more than £116.75 a week, the claimant will get nothing on income based JSA.

Why doesn't he sign up to some employment agencies? It is coming up to Xmas so there'll be a fair bit of work in factories and shops etc.

tricklesthegreek

He has signed up to employment agencies, walked around talking to managers in shops, been signing up to stuff far away as well, just getting absolutely nothing :-( It's so disheartening, I can't believe he can't even get a fricking pizza delivery job and he is a telecoms engineer!! I don't get it, he's willing to do anything and no one will give him a chance :-(

sniggings

Maybe do an SOA, (statement of affairs) and post on the debt free section as I'm finding it hard to see how you can be struggling on £29k a year with no kids!

And as said above, if one of you earn more than the couple allowance of £111 you get no JSA.

Maybe he could deliver pizzas as they always seem to be looking for drivers, that would leave his days free to look for work.

edid just seen he has tried for pizza delivery.

ohreally

As already stated, your earnings are above the threshold so will not meet the conditions to claim IB-JSA - he may be eligible for NIC being maintained though.

Are you a member of a trade union at work? If so you may be eligible to receive financial grants through them, however this is very much dependant on the TU and you can't join to make a retrospective claim.

zagfles

If you live in a really high rent area LHA is a possibility, but unlikely to be much on a £29k income.

ohreally

zagfles wrote: »

If you live in a really high rent area LHA is a possibility, but unlikely to be much on a £29k income.

LHA is capped by property size, set by LA.


Checker https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/search.aspx

zagfles

ohreally wrote: »

LHA is capped by property size, set by LA.


Checker https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/search.aspx

Yup, a couple would get the one-bed rate, it'd need to be a very high rent area eg Central London to get any LHA on £29k.

tricklesthegreek

sniggings - you may struggle to see how we can't survive on my salary but considering it has £130 snipped off straight away for student loans repayments and our household bills come to 1850 thanks to the wonder of high rent costs - if some sod would give us a mortgage we could own a house for £250 a month less but no lender can see logic in that so we are stuck paying extortionate rents. I refuse point blank to cancel our house insurance as we were burgled this year and we need that. We have cut our food down to £55 a week, I have high petrol costs unfortunately because of travelling to school - I would appreciate people not making a judgement on my outgoings just because they see a headline salary. My friend is on £35k a year and she is struggling because of a similar reason so it means nothing.

My husband is literally willing to do ANYTHING short of selling himself to the nearest bidder, but he can't get anyone to give him a look in. Pizza driver, tried that - even went down there twice to follow up the application. Nada. Cleaner - nope. Supermarkets - applied and heard nothing. Chased up and they said 'oh we get lots of applicants this time of year.' Post office haven't got anything this time of year around here which is surprising. Tried local pubs, cafes, literally anything. Applied for at least 45 jobs online, had one telephone interview and they went with someone with more experience. He's got 12 years telecoms experience so this guy must have been like a god or something. He's tried going door to door in shops asking if they have any work, even if it's part time - no one around here seems to be hiring. I wouldn't mind, he's not thick, he's nice, he's got great customer service skills - just don't get why he's not getting his foot in the door anywhere. He's willing to do anything just to make up the bills and take his time finding a proper salaried job again. I don't know if his CV isn't reading right or if he's being seen as overqualified? He's under no pressure from me because we were trying to save for a house but that's gone out the window until he is salaried again, only pressure is to bring in £70 a week. Doesn't seem like a big ask but he just can't get anything and it's massively disheartening.

sniggings

well if you can't save for a house and may not get a mortage anyway if you have gone BR, it is either him finding a job or cutting back on expenses, as you say he can not find a job (still early days) I thought it best to say maybe your expenses are too high, I may have the amounts wrong but £29k is around £500 a week, if you are spending only £55 on food, that leaves £445 a week for rent etc sorry if I'm failing to see why you are having sleepless nights over not having an extra £70 a week.

csmw

tricklesthegreek wrote: »

Hi all.
My husband has been employed for 6 weeks (not long compared to a lot I know). The job centre said after 6 months contribution based jobseekers allowance stops.
They said that he should be entitled to income based (means tested) JSA after six months. They said so long as your wife doesn't earn something mega like 50k a year (I wish!) - I am a teacher on 29k a year. With his JSA at the moment we can pay our bills - we have cut down £150 a month off of our shopping but I still need the £280 odd per month that comes from JSA.
It's causing me huge amounts of sleepless nights wondering what will happen if we don't get the income based stuff. We have no savings and we rent a house privately because we don't have kids basically it would take years to get any sort of housing help (not to mention the fact we would always rather do things off our own backs).
Obviously I am hoping and praying that he finds something, anything - but after six weeks of applying for countless jobs he's not getting anywhere and I'm actually getting physically ill over the worry of it all.
If anyone knows what kind of threshold it is then at least I can know any figure out if I need to start selling my soul or something.

In the mean time, has anyone got any ways of getting in some extra cash - £70 a week must be achievable somewhere, somehow - we have cut absolutely everything we can down but god bless our rent being high where we live there's nothing we can do to reduce our income further and moving in with our parents is not an option as they simply do not have any space as they both downsized when we left home about 10 years ago!!

Hi

He wouldn't get Income based jsa unfortunatly, not sure if this is any use but since your hubby is willing to do most things would he consider working for HMRC, they are doing a national recruitment at the moment. Since its a civil service position he wont have to have experience just meet the competencies.