National Insurance Contributions

MissVK1990

Hi there, 
I have been following the national insurance record articles on Martin Lewis and have checked my record. There are a lot of gaps from when I was studying or on Job Seeker's Allowance and I was wondering whether anyone knew who pays the national insurance contributions when you are studying full-time or are on Job Seeker's Allowance? 
Many thanks

p00hsticks

You should be credited with Class 1 credits automatically when claiming JSA, but you don't get credits for studying - it would be up to the student to pay Class 3 voluntary contributions if they wanted to .

MissVK1990

So technically when I was on JSA the DWP should have paid contributions so that that tax year is a complete year or do they only pay a certain percentage?

p00hsticks

MissVK1990 said:

So technically when I was on JSA the DWP should have paid contributions so that that tax year is a complete year or do they only pay a certain percentage?

They'll give you a weeks credit for each week you claim JSA.
From my possibly incorrect recollection you only qualify for JSA for six months at a time, so you'd most likely end up with a year partially filled.

If you were working full-time before and after claiming JSA the rest of the year would be filled via your NI contributions while working. If you weren't working you'd have to make additional voluntary contributions to fill the year. Your NI record should show whether the year is made up of a number of weeks credits, payments or a mixture of both. 

Partial years do not count when calculating State Pension entitlement. 

sammyjammy

The OP could have been claiming Income based JSA.  If you were claiming for the whole of one tax/NI year then yes you should have a credit for each relevant week which will add up to a full year, this is unless you were disallowed a period of your claim.

MissVK1990

Thank you all I was on JSA from July 2013 to Oct 2014 so will be talking to HMRC future pensions team shortly to query that year. 

molerat

MissVK1990 said:

Thank you all I was on JSA from July 2013 to Oct 2014 so will be talking to HMRC future pensions team shortly to query that year. 

But that is 2 part years.  Have you clicked on "View details" to see what is actually showing for each of those years ?

MissVK1990

Yes I have and it seems they have made some errors in calculating for these two part years.