To think paying tax on jobseekers allowance is just crap

fupoffy and that’s the mind set decent hardworking people have. Unfortunately there are many people who do not have the same mindset. They are often the ones having lots of children. And so the cycle continues.
Strange how I come across many parents who either do not work or work very few hours so that they can claim benefits. They also don’t live with ( or claim not to live with) any of the fathers to these children.
The married parents seem to have to wait much longer to be able to afford to have a child ( and often only 1 child.) Strange that.
This is my every day experience, not some media hype. The council and voluntary organisations try very hard to make the town pleasant and do their best to attract visitors. However, the skanks roaming around are reason to put people off coming sadly.

The best bit is that the OP thinks that she should have a higher tax free allowance than every other taxpayer so that she can give her offspring a house deposit!

I'm sure there will be a queue of eager contributors, also paying tax and NI and just getting by who would be really happy to feel that they are funding that.

Also she seems to have a husband, who she says is also earning. Perhaps he could have shouldered the grocery bill for a few weeks?

”just fine” what a boring life though / I’d rather work and have money to do nice things like travel and it have to think about spending money on things I want when I want them.

to be able to just take my daughter a theme park on a whim,

get concert tickets when they go on sale

go to music festivals

having enough money to get by in benefits is not a life I want

I think you are doing all the right things OP, you saved and paid your dues. You are entitled to benefits the same as everyone else - but O agree having worked like you over 30 years and paid into the system that you get so little in return.

You have also proved that if people want to work they will find a job.

But paying tax on your JSA is because your annual income went over the tax threshold of £12570.

Imo ALL income including all benefits should be taxed IF the persons annual income exceeds the threshold

There are plenty of people who do just fine never doing a days work. Plenty of then roam about town, smoking, drinking, spitting, shouting and swearing to each other. They put decent people off coming into town and spending money.
Yes not all people are like this but stop insisting that every single person claiming benefits is decent and really, really trying to get a job or using their time in a positive manner.

Yes, it is very easy and actually the way the system works is that you have to prove how much anxious you are and even if you could eventually get better, there is no point as you will lose your PIP.

My ex-DIL did exactly this when she had start looking for a job when our grandson was old enough.

Middle class person suddenly finds out that the benefit system is not free money lifestyle the Daily Mail told her about

Of course you did. Your JSA payments counted against your tax allowance just like everyone else.

If you'd spent every penny you earn you would have contributed to the economy and paid VAT on purchases further increasing the "pot" but you didn't... you saved it, which is great but doesn't mean you should get a handout.

Is it because you have gone over the amount you are allowed to earn before paying tax?
I actually agree with you op.
You are unemployed therefore you have just as much right to claim unemployment benefit as anyone else.
I would rather this money go to someone like the op than those who have never done a days work in their life and receive benefits for years and years without ever contributing to the pot.

You’ve lost the room by claiming JSA when you had savings.

Within the tax year you must have used your tax free allowance, so any income is taxed. You won’t get any sympathy here.

I did not get taxed on my contributions based job seekers allowance, because I was made redundant in April, so it was at the beginning of the new tax year.
At the time it was £73 per week
That is after decades of working
The money helped me to go to job interviews & secure a new job

Personally I think it's high time the savings threshold was increased massively.......it was anything above 6k when I had to claim benefits over 25 years ago. Which is fuckall these days. Between 16k and 26k would be far more proportionate.

If a person is made redundant

A person can claim contributions based job seekers allowance for a certain time period
During this time it is NOT means tested
Redundancy pay is not taken into account
National insurance contributions are also paid during this time when a person is not working
I had to attend the job centre once per week in person & confirm my job searches

The money is only means tested if a person is unemployed for over a certain time period & this is confirmed by the DWP

I was glad of the payment, it is scary being made redundant. The bills do not stop coming in.

I was fortunate to gain new employment within a short time period

Honestly op it’s not worth having over 6k in savings if you lose your job - my husband was made redundant and he got about out like 15k so we were entitled to very little obviously- however we had a lot of debt that we’d been struggling to pay off (10k) we battled with paying it off with the payout and claiming universal credit or using the money to live - we took the risk and paid the credit cards off and claimed
we only got 2 months of universal credit in the end as he got a new high paid job fast!

but we came out of it all debt free in the end and which is a privileged place to be ! If we decided to keep the money and not claim we would be way worse off now.

I have also worked FT for 30 years and would be pissed off too.

It’s frustrating that for short term job seeking conditions home owning and savings are given so much weight in benefit assessments. Taking the 6 month limit approach and paying housing benefit and universal credit at the standard rate before moving into means testing would be so much less disruptive to the household and prevent downward spirals starting.

Particularly as a lot is taxable so where income jumps back up again a large portion is later recouped.

What are you saving for? At the point whereby care home fees enter the equation that’s about the only thing you can use your savings for, we call ours the care home fund. Savings are for a rainy day but it seems that some are reluctant to put the umbrella up when the heavens open.