to think JSA is insultingly low amount

[brt100]

I mean 72 pounds a week is a joke, and you will loose 20% of that if you had an average paying job for half of the tax year.

Around here the daily rate wouldn't even cover the daily bus ticket to get to interviews.

I think the OP's point about tax is that once you get back into work that oh so lavish 72 a week you received counts as taxable income. Which is as it should be imo.

I do feel some compassion for the OP but that attempt at "bettering yourself" by buying a property can and often does turn into a massive albatross once you have the misfortune to become unemployed or unable to work through ill-health for any length of time. But such is life: it's full of risks. Renting isn't all beer and skittles either: landlord rightfully expects the rent to be paid in advance and HB/LHA is paid in arrears. For many that's a hard square to circle. And an equally hard one once you get back into work and your pay-check is a month away but the HB/LHA has been cancelled the minute you signed off.

How nice of you to point out how much better you are than me. FYI when I was unemployed I applied for several jobs a day. Everything from cleaning toilets at minimum wage to the professional job I'm trained to do and all sorts of jobs in between. The constant rejection and more often constant no replies really get you down. There really is no need for people like you to rub our noses in it. Why the need to make us feel worse than we already do? Does it make you feel special to look down on us lesser beings.

Seriously, I'm not even unemployed any more (not that I ever appeared in the statistics) but posts like your's really possible me off. What's it like to be so fucking perfect?

That was directed at bubble btw.

"gave off the air of someone who didn't want to work"

What, you mean apart from the actual facts?

The abbatoir themselves said the vegan wouldn't be suitable for the first job unless she was comfortable around blood and dead animals (at 30-Apr-14 19:01:26). And she jumped at the PA job when offered.

So if you're describing yourself as a keyboard warrior, Bubble, don't give up the day job...

BTW, matching of applicants to vacancies is a distant dream in these days where failing to make a fixed number of applications is sanctioned. There have been some corking examples.

I think Bubble must have been exceptionally lucky and is not referring to the current market.

I would be very surprised if anyone could get a job without relevant experience in today's job market, with the possible exception of minimum wage jobs in that have high turnover.

And if you have been working at a higher level I don't think it is unreasonable to look for jobs at the right level and in the right industry in the first instance.

Because if you are an experienced engineer for example, you have little chance of paying your bills on coffee shop wages and you are also unlikely to get a job in a coffee shop, because there will be other applicants with relevant experience and they will expect that you will be looking for an engineering job from day one and might leave after a very short period, and they will need to recruit again.

Bubble - I'm not talking about 'graduate' jobs btw I'm talking about them getting bar work, retail work etc. Graduates looking for anything to pay them a wage initially...

Some are talking about having attended mass recruitment days to work at Starbucks. I don't think they are being particularly fussy!

bitter but the OP reads as though she's suggesting you might only get £57.60 a week on JSA, when really you will get the full £72 a week, and possibly have to pay a tiny bit more tax when you get a job than if the JSA was non-taxable- but seeing as things won't be so tight when you get a job it doesn't matter as much.

Agapanthers - It's not so much better being on disability. Since my disabilities mean my expenses are more due to needing to use buses and attend hospital, the remainder doesn't go far.

Being on benefits is soul destroying, having no choice due to my health makes life one long road of pain and hunger. So much so that sometimes I believe my ds would be better off if I was dead so he could live with a new well off family.

It is a tiny amount of the welfare budget.

LithaR

This government have been very cruel to those on disability benefits. Life is not sweet on benefits in any way.

Neighbour was on JSA for six months. She's a skilled offshoreworker but had to take sick leave a few times, not a single person would have her.

She has a dog, a cat, a car and a mortgage on a two bed house. She's also epileptic with severe depression.

Within weeks she was thousands in debt with wonga, living on dry cereal with no electric or heating and highly addicted to painkillers. Tried to commit suicide several times.

She wasn't allowed to drive and couldn't get a bus pass either, but had to travel 7 miles weekly to job centre to prove she wanted a job if not more so she could use their newspapers and that.

The JSA paid for mortgage, bills and transport - she couldn't afford food and used to take leftovers etc from my mum (who's on disability benefits herself, which thankfully is livable).

She now works for a factory sticking labels onto boxes of fish that come down a conveyor belt. She does that for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, for less than £200 a week. She eats noodles, cuppa soups and doesn't do anything other than work and sleep - she can't afford anything else.

Don't think her most recent attempt on her life will be her last unfortunately.

It isn't just as simple as 'there are plenty of jobs out there.'

My DP had a spell of unemployment a couple of years ago nd although was getting the interviews all the feedback was 'you are over qualified' and so was passed over.

One interviewer even said that although DP would be great at the job, they wouldn't give it to him as their boss would be worried that he would be after their job due to his qualifications.

It is.

And contribution based JSA is even worse - £42 a week to live on, would you believe.

As a Carer I get less, even though I have to prove I care for 35 hours a week.

Which I think is insulting.

But if you lose your job and have a few debts £72 is nothing, really pants. Frankly I could see why some people would feel better off never bothering, than to try their best and get hit more (I don't mean massive credit cards, a car loan to get to work or anything like that- pretty basic stuff).

It's not that east for grads to find entry level work either, even MW jobs. I know because I tried and even with a few decade's work experience and an almost complete MA, nada.

'It is' was a response to the OPs question, btw, not the post after mine.

(I get £61.35 a week, I care for three people with disability, you only get assessed for first one at 35 hours but other two fall into same amount of needs as well, damned genetics unfortunately, though only found that out recently).

"And contribution based JSA is even worse - 42 a week to live on, would you believe."

No, I wouldn't believe it. Contribs-based is 72 a week for an adult. Young people receive less which is terribly difficult-to-impossible if they don't live at home with their folks. Income-based might be less if you have savings.

"Agapanthers - It's not so much better being on disability. Since my disabilities mean my expenses are more due to needing to use buses and attend hospital, the remainder doesn't go far."

That's true, I was referring to the relative financial positions though, not really about the practicalities of it, which will vary from individual to individual.

I'm graduating soon , have just applied for JSA while I look for a job. It terrifies me, because it's s very little. Hopefully, though, I won't be out of work for very long (quite a good degree, PG offers and so on, determined single Mum), but the amount is a deterrent. It's forcing me to look for anything and everything. I think that's the idea of it, though.

Being punitively low is not the point.

It cant force you to get a job if there aren't nough jobs.

It should provide enough for basic standard of living not struggling in poverty because unemployed people are considered subhuman.

peachy , carers are seriously undervalued

I knew what you meant Lemon

That's true about it being low. I like to think as an optimist, because I've worked so hard for my degree, but I know the reality will grind me down after a couple of months.

Bubblebutt79

Nope, the thread started out with the role initially being completely away from any of the "nitty gritty" - it was an office role, but she didn't want to go for the job because of her vegan stance. I must admit, I didn't read the whole thread, as the responses were infuriating (to me, I understand people having differing opinions!).

Nope, it didn't. It started out with the OP not clarifying where in the abbatoir the job was, and several people assuming it couldn't possibly be the actual line. Then the OP came back and clarified, and it was, indeed, the actual line.

Can one of the MNers claiming JSA have your job, or would their higher level of reading comprehension make them over-qualified?