general question re contribution based jobseekers allowance ?

deejaybee

Hi all,

After a long period of self-employment, i commenced my current PAYE job in August 2023, so i will have NI credits for this ( 23-24 ) tax year.

Apparently you need to have paid employee NI for 2 ( consecutive ? ) tax years to be potentially eligible for contribution-based job seekers allowance ?

Is this correct ?  

and do you have to have earned a certain amount during the tax year ?  ie is there a minimum amount to have earned ?

Thank you

housebuyer143

Yes, you need 2 years of type 1 NI credits. You need to earn over the threshold which is like £123 a week or something to qualify for type 1 credits.

p00hsticks

DWP will currently still be looking at NI contributions for tax years 2020-21 and 2021-22 - in the new year they'll advance the 'benefit year' and consider years 2021-22 and 2022-23 instead. So I'm afraid that none of your Class 1 contributions made since August are going to count towards JSA for at least another 12 months....

Newcad

As said the benefit year and the tax year don't align.

Benefit years change in Jamuary, Tax years change in April.

So you have to be careful when working out just which years NI contributions count towards benefits 

Edit- I like that typo, this Jamuary I'm going to have strawberry jam on my toast.

deejaybee

Thanks for the feedback all, appreciated