Angry re ESA

Mrshatch77

I just feel that if it should be based on NI that if you have not paid NI due to health reasons it should be looked at differently

missbiggles1

Mrshatch77 wrote: »

Also my daughter has just started an appretaship so I am not just £250 down I am also not getting tax credit or child benefit for her so I am actually £500 down literally overnight. She doesn't earn much so can only give me £150 a month rent. I get PIP but it's only standard rate but my disability has got worse so I'm reapplying hoping to get the higher rate

Now your daughter's working, the money she pays for her keep should balance out with some of your loss.

TELLIT01

If I had a quid for every time I heard the same heart felt cry when I worked on ESA. "I worked all my life....." I do have enormous sympathy for people who find themselves in a similar position to the OP. They have either, as she has done, reduced their hours in order to continue working, or lived off savings for a couple of years because they don't want to claim benefits.
They end up in the same situation i.e. Insufficient NI contributions in the 2 qualifying years to have an entitlement to Conts Based benefits. I've said many times before that the benefits systems is heavily stacked in favour of those who won't and haven't worked. It has always seems unfair to me and to most of my colleagues when I worked at DWP. Unfortunately, there is nothing any of us can do directly about that. Maybe, if enough people did complain to their MP that 'hard working people' (current government favourite buzzphrase) lose out by trying to remain independant something would change. Sadly I won't hold my breath on that one.

Alice_Holt

Mrshatch77 wrote: »

I get PIP but it's only standard rate but my disability has got worse so I'm reapplying hoping to get the higher rate

Be careful as this gives the DWP an early opportunity to review your award. Your award may increase, may be unchanged, or may decrease!

Before asking for a supercession be very careful that you can get to the 12 points required for an enchanced award.
See:http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-self-test

Also have your medical evidence for an enhanced award ready:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/help-with-your-pip-claim/your-supporting-evidence/

Don't just ask for a PIP reassessment out of pique because you can't claim ESA.

Incidentally CB ESA WRAG is only paid for 365 days.

epitome

Maybe you should write that letter to your MP.

Your MP and others of their ilk wrote the laws that DWP has to abide by.

Maybe you should tell your MP to campaign for the Contributory Benefits eligibility criteria to be relaxed so that:
any tax year in your lifetime can be looked at
or any tax year in the last 10 years
or any in the last 5 years,

Any one of those would be an improvement on the current system that only looks at the earliest 2 years out of the last 3 years, i.e. they take 13/14 and 14/15 for a claim made in 2016.

TELLIT01

My purely personal view is that a 5 year window would be a much fairer period to consider. As I said previously, many people do try to struggle on without claiming benefits because they don't realise that the end result will be a negative one for them.

xylophone

Now I am not getting paid and not getting any help except housing benefit, tax credits and PIP

Not much there then!

sportsarb

Mrshatch77 wrote: »

I have worked all my life since i was 15 years old. In the past couple of years my health has deteriorated. At the time this all started my full time job made me redundant so I decided that rather than going on disability benefits I would lower my hours and go part time as I wanted to work as long as I could. Sadly four years on my condition got worse and I had to my hours to 8 per week which ive done for the past year. Now it's got so bad that I am off on term sick. My SSP has finished but I thought I would be OK as I was told I could get ESA by my employer. I applied and was turned down because over the past year I've not paid NI. I am furious that they only take the past year into consideration and it doesn't matter thAt I worked all my life and paid NI all
Those years. Now I am not getting paid and not getting any help except housing benefit, tax credits and PIP which I've had for almost two years. I am now £250 down per month. I feel it is totally wrong and feel like writing to my MP. :mad:

When you write to your MP, ask him why he and his colleagues passed the legislation that the DWP are obliged to use on your claim.

dekaspace

TELLIT01 wrote: »

. I've said many times before that the benefits systems is heavily stacked in favour of those who won't and haven't worked.

No its in favour of people who play the system to get things that genuine people lose out on (genuine could mean long term unemployed)

The system means that its not just about money, but things like I personally was on JSA for years not finding work due to disability reasons, if they helped me years ago and put me on ESA I would of been working by now, if DWP didn't make screw ups and act suspicious of changes I would of been working by now.

Yet I know people who are the type who never want to work, or long term claim JSA who work cash in hand and they know every trick in the book,

When I wanted to go back to education part time, they got suspicious and changed my sign on date and time to the time window every week when I wanted to study and changed it to weekly sign, my advisor admitted after I had to leave education because of that reason it was because they had me down as suspicious and assumed I was doing cash in hand work!

There used to be another system that was cut that meant you could work part time and still claim benefits and it was kept for you up to a year and £1000 limit, this meant when you found a job you didn't worry about rent and other bills till first paycheque.

When they change rules to make it harder to find useful work

So its not that it favours people who don't/won't work as much as punishes people who find work or have some savings, even when I worked for a few months I saved a few hundred knowing if/when Iost my job I would have a down period between final wage and getting benefits but each time I did this when I signed back on benefits treated me suspiciously to have "savings" when I was leaving work especially when I said I didn't earn much money in the job or me telling them I couldn't attend a job interview like 30 miles away as public transport takes 2-3 hours to get there to be told "oh but you have savings, use that to get a taxi"

And to go into your "won't" side of things thats a loaded term, if someone was living hand to mouth on benefits, and were told there was a job coming up that meant at best they were same level of income, but work long hours, lose entitlement to healthcare such as prescriptions, have to spend long time such as hours a day travelling but likely be worse off and if they have kids they would not have any time to see them then of course its better to see the reasons for not wanting to work.

Its never as simple as a benefit claimaint just being lazy, or refusing to work.

Lanzarote1938

dekaspace wrote: »

And to go into your "won't" side of things thats a loaded term, if someone was living hand to mouth on benefits, and were told there was a job coming up that meant at best they were same level of income, but work long hours, lose entitlement to healthcare such as prescriptions, have to spend long time such as hours a day travelling but likely be worse off and if they have kids they would not have any time to see them then of course its better to see the reasons for not wanting to work.

Its never as simple as a benefit claimaint just being lazy, or refusing to work.

If I ruled the world then if there was a job available then there would be no choice. Take the job or lose the benefits.