working 10 hours a week while on jsa

red_devil

I believe if you work 10hours a week and you earn more than £71 then you can come off jobseekers? Do you still sign on though and is your housing benefit affected?

ditzyat50

I understand the logic in not signing on if you earn more than JSA and I may be mistaken but I think that housing benefit is income related so you will still be eligible. However if you just stop signing they notify the housing benefit and it stops immediately. You will then have to put a new claim in for housing benefit based on your change of circumstances. It may be a little lower but you will be earning a little more than JSA. At the end of the day it will probably be even-stevens but at least no dreaded signing on and you can have pride in working. Maybe another poster may be able to be more helpful. Hope it works out for you.

Robbie64

red_devil wrote: »

I believe if you work 10hours a week and you earn more than £71 then you can come off jobseekers? Do you still sign on though and is your housing benefit affected?

You are allowed to earn a small amount of money each week without your benefit being affected (as long as you work under 16 hours a week). For a single person with no dependants and not in receipt of DLA this amount is £5 per week (it's been the same amount since 1988!). Effectively this means if you are aged 25+ you can earn up to just under £76 per week and still get JSA.

Above £76 your JSA claim will end and you will need to claim Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit on the grounds of a low income. The amount of HB and CTB you will receive will be less than if you were on JSA but overall it will work out that you are 15p better off for each £1 you earn over £76 (the £5 disregard is also included in calculating HB and CTB).

A note though: when your JSA ends you will no longer be eligible for National Insurance Credits which means if you earn too little to pay national insurance contributions you will have to consider paying a voluntary NI contribution

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ni/volcontr/basics.htm

A Class 3 voluntary contribution is £13.25 per week.
A Class 2 (self employed) voluntary contribution is £2.65

moneyhustler88

I've applied for a job at a local hostel..it's 6 hours a week..but i'm also putting in a claim for JSA, (long story as you may find from my other thread) how would I go about verifying i only work 6 hours a week? The pay is 6.20 a hour for the job so id' only earn if i get the job £36.00 or something equivalent..would I even be elgibile for JSA?

Robbie64

moneyhustler88 wrote: »

I've applied for a job at a local hostel..it's 6 hours a week..but i'm also putting in a claim for JSA, (long story as you may find from my other thread) how would I go about verifying i only work 6 hours a week? The pay is 6.20 a hour for the job so id' only earn if i get the job £36.00 or something equivalent..would I even be elgibile for JSA?

Assuming you satisfy all other conditions for receiving JSA, working 6 hours a week won't stop you from receiving JSA if your income and savings fall under a certain amount.

You would need to provide proof that you work 6 hours a week - proof can take various forms, such as a payslip, a letter from your employer, a contract of employment, a bank statement showing wages being paid into the bank... there are other ways too.