Carer's allowance earnings

janeinsheffield

I started getting carer's allowance at the end of the year (paid weekly) to look after my Mum. I probably do about 60 hours a week all told and it's prevented me from getting a job since I was made redundant. However, I've been offered the possibility of some work that I can do from home in my spare time that's quite lucrative but it will be on a self employed, claims basis. Do they base your earnings on an average over the month/week/year and is it when you get paid or when you worked? e.g I might get a day's consultancy a month and get paid £600. If I got that every month would they stop a year's career's allowance or just a week or month? I'd like to do it just to keep in the loop so that one day I might be able to get back to work but if they remove my carer's allowance because of it I might get caught in a benefit trap. Anyone know?

RAP_2

From the NUS website...

Carer's Allowance is the main state benefit for carers, so it's important to find out if you can receive it. It is currently £59.75 a week. To qualify, you need to meet all the rules for claiming Carer's Allowance. Check each rule carefully, as they're quite complicated:

• You must be 16 years old or over.
• You must look after someone for at least 35 hours a week.
• The person you look after must receive a qualifying disability benefit.
• If you work, you must not have net earnings above £100 a week. For more information on this, see the section on caring and earnings below.
• You must not get certain other benefits. See overlapping benefit rules below for details.
• You must be living in the UK when you claim Carer's Allowance and satisfy certain residence and immigration rules.
• You must not be a full-time student.

Your eligibility for Carer's Allowance won't be affected by any savings that you have or your National Insurance contributions record.
Getting Carer's Allowance can help you protect your eligibility for State Pension by helping you build up your National Insurance contribution record.
Read Carer's Allowance claims for information on how to make your claim. Carer's Allowance is a taxable benefit, except for any increases for children.
The official online source of government information on benefits is GOV.UK.
Click on the bars below for more detailed information on Carer's Allowance rules, or read more about challenging a Carer's Allowance decision. If you feel you have enough information, you can download the Carer's Allowance claim form here (PDF, 320kb).

LocoLoco

Hi there,


Have a look on the Carer's UK website, they have a whole section on there about Carer's Allowance and earnings. There are some things you can deduct from your income if you're working (some pension contributions, for example, and certain work related expenses). I'd have a good read through that (you can also ring their advice line if necessary) and you should be able to work out (a) if you can spread your earnings out over the year and (b) which work related expenses you can offset (which should help keep you under the limit throughout the year).


I hope it works out for you, it's quite rare to get a well paid job you can fit around caring so I hope you are able to do it, it would be a shame not to. Fingers crossed!

LocoLoco

Specialone wrote: »

so basically if you earn over £100 a week, then you won't received carers allowance

No, there are some work related earnings that aren't counted so if you take advantage of those you can earn more than £100 but the excess isn't counted.