Job seekers allowance with savings?

[Burpsandrustles]

Can get job seekers allowance? With savings and redundancy pay?

I believe you are allowed to have £6000 in savings.
Any thing more than that and you will not get as much job seekers allowance.
Although there must be an amount where you cannot claim anything; no idea what it is tho.

When this happened to me there were 2 types of JSA. I still got money fortnightly. I only claimed for one month as I found employment.

If your savings are under £16,000 you can claim Universal Credit. This has replaced income based JSA and other means tested benefits, for everyone except those in receipt of Severe Disability Premium.

If your savings are over this amount, you can still claim contribution based JSA (now called New Style JSA) which is based on your National Insurance record.

Savings over 16000 but can still claim, that's interesting!

Thanks for advice

If your savings are UNDER £16,000 you can claim Universal Credit

Job seekers allowance I was after.

If you have up to 6k you can get reduced JSA 16k nothing

If you have sufficient national insurance contribution you can claim contributory JSA and it won't matter what your savings are.
This lasts for 6 months.
After that you need to claim Universal Credit, which has replaced income based JSA. The amount of benefit is effected if you have more than £6000. If you have more than £16,000 you won't be entitled.

Oh dear, lots of bad/incorrect advice, apart from unlimiteddilutingjuice who is correct.

OP, you need to claim "new style JSA" which is contributory JSA ie eligibility is based on National Insurance contributions. It's not means-tested so income and savings are not counted. It's paid for a maximum of 6 months while you look for work. £73.10/week.

As others have said New Style JSA is the best option if you have savings. It’s only valid for 12 months I think and after that you’d need to apply for Universal Credit which does have savings limits.

www.gov.uk/how-to-claim-new-style-jsa

www.gov.uk/how-to-claim-new-style-jsa

This is not relevant to the OP (who has savings over £16k) but in case it's relevant to anyone else who is reading: it is possible to claim both new-style JSA and Universal Credit at the same time, provided you are eligible for both (which is easily possible).

Fuck me, just live off your savings.

I don’t understand why you aren’t living off your savings. Surely that’s what they are for.

Why shouldn't the op claim contribution based / New Style JSA if she's entitled to it? The whole idea behind National Insurance is that you pay into the system so you can claim if your circumstances change. Same as the State Pension. Do you think those entitled to claim their state pension should refrain from doing so if they have savings?

Well said!

I don’t understand why you aren’t living off your savings. Surely that’s what they are for

Because the government make allowances for savings in the benefits system so that a reduction is made for money over 6k and still allow claims up to 16k on savings.

That's why.

When my husband left the armed forces we weren't even entitled to contributions based JSA.

I don’t understand why you aren’t living off your savings. Surely that’s what they are for.

Because that doesn't protect National Insurance contributions from a pension perspective.

Plus have you actually seen how low JSA is? Burpsandrustles will definitely have to dip into savings to make up the shortfall until in new employment unless the savings are so low they then qualify for universal credit in which case it's a moot point.

Best of luck with the job hunting Burpsandrustles.