to expect some flaming help

[rightpissedoff]

Apparently I'm not eligible for contrbuion based jobseekers allowance because my NI contributions were made so long ago.

Twenty years of tax and class one contributions mean nothing. Because I didn't work in the two years before I claimed.

Bloody well did my duty ..now I need some help where is it?

What's the flaming point.

obvioiusly no am I not

it's NOT FAIR

It is not fair at all you are right but as will have already been told"rules are rules" I was in a very similar situation when I fled (literally) from my house with me and dd1 to my mothers house.I was told that my wages I had at the end of January should keep me till my payment from them in March.Never mind that I still had all my direct debits for the bills had gone out at the end of Jan. It was the 2nd of Feb I left btw they awarded me £2.46 to live on for Feb.Like you I had paid tax and worked since I was 17.

I do understand that the welfare state is there for he needy but at that one point in my life I felt I needed help and I was told by an advisor that if I had never worked it wouldn't have been an issue.

Sorry to hear that reindeer, your situation worse than mine.

Yep that's the impression I'm getting. Never work -- no problem. Am really furious.

What is your situation? If you have a partner earning, over a certain amount of savings or some other source of income you will probably not get JSA. If you have no other source of income you will probably still get income based JSA which is the same rate as contributions based JSA anyway. You can still get housing benefit and tax credits if your income is low enough. Look at entitledto.com.
Hope that helps.

YANBU to think they should take into account what you have contributed before the last two years.

thanks ambarth

can't give details but basically on paper there is too much to claim income based but in reality there isn't (partner stuff)

so I thought -- well a least I can have a little of what I paid in

fat chance

hey I know I'm right about this

how come so few people agree?

it's the mn sliding scale of support again

injustice towards someone who was once better off? heaven forfend

i suppose I should be grateful for being able to earn money for twenty years

unfortunately rightpissedoff - it's what on paper that they look at, they're not interested in the finer details and where the money that you and your DP/DH that you live with comes from/goes.

Do make sure you're getting anything else you could be entitled to CTC, Housing Benefits (If you rent), Council Tax Benefit etc.

The job centre are very good at telling you "no you can't have JSA (ot whatever you're applying for)" and then not telling you that although you may not get that you can get other help

(oh and you probably havne't had many replies yet as you posted at midnight on a Friday night and it's only 9.20am on a Saturday morning )........give people time to wake up

but this rule is so arbitrary -- it's completely unjust

unless you've paid the class 1 contrbutions in certain years, tough

it is absolutely arbitrary

contribution based gives the impression of being in some way insurance based, you've paid it so here's help back

imposing an arbitrary time rule completely defeats the point

Tha happened to me to. They came me £2.50 to live off!

they are very quick to send me the letter to tell me that my jsa will be taxed however and they've told the IR that i'll be getting jsa so look out for a letter fom them

twats

the whole thing is an utter shambles, left hand doesnt know what the right hand is doing

it is "in theory" taxed - but actually there's no tax to pay on £64.50 a week (I think it's something to do with continuation of NI or something).

It is NI based, and the rules about contributions based JSA only being available for 6 months aren't new. Someone who has never paid NI isn't eligible for contributions based JSA either, but may be eligible for non-contributions based JSA (dependent on overall household income/assets).

If you do not receive HRP (through CB or another qualifying benefit), it is still worth signing on for non-contributions based JSA in order to receive the NI credit even though you won't get the cash.

you are right though - they don't know what the other fingers on the same hand are doing let alone what the other hand is going. And once you have contact with a job centre you can then expect a barrage of letters, sometimes 2 or 3 sent out on the same day, all telling you different things (sometimes totally differing things, sometimes opposing things) - none the less things that could have been placed in one letter.

I'm pretty sure that in the time I've been on benefits they could have give me an extra weeks benefits a month with the money saved on sending out surplus letters

Roll on September when DS3 starts school and I hopefully find work - I'll still probably be getting some benefits (HB and CTB) - but at least I won't have to deal with the bloody DWP any more

thanks baroque

the more you post the more kafka-esque the whole thing seems

or is it that dickensian jarndyce and jarndyce thing? it's so wrong (and obv there are so many wrongs about it to do with other, needier people than me) that if you think about it too hard you get really, pointlessly angry

also tbh in quite a horrible way sorry, it doesn't help that a lot of the people you deal with are plainly stupid

oh yes some of them are hopeless. One told exH once that as he was "involved in industrial action" he couldn't claim JSA until after it had finished

Except he wasn't involved in industrial action, he'd been fired and was appealing the decision. And as I was in the room at the time he phoned (we weren't together at the time - but were getting on ok at the time so I was pointing him in the right direction for benefits) I know for a fact that he said nothing about industrial action and explained his situation pefectly.

He hung up on that occasion, but I persauded him to ring back 2 days later and he was - of course - told he could claim.

yes yes

during my long attempt at claiming many wrong forms were sent and strange letters about wrong dates and previous employment other burnable stuff

it was all started by very dumb woman at jsa who gave me wrong advice in the first place

and yet you just know that if you went for a job there you wouldn't get it

wouldn't want an employee seeing how flawed and hopeless the system

The only way to get any money is to cheat I think.

I am very cross..everyone recognises it's right to pay in for redistributive purposes but you do at least think..well if I'm ever there I know it'll be there for me too.

Except it isn't.

computer says no...