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.

Sorry totally and utterly disagree with you OttilieKnackered

If you want to discuss age discrimination talk to my aunt made redundant at age 58 with another 8 years before she gets her pension and not much chance of getting another job at her age not even entitled to income based JSA despite having worked non stop for over 40 years all because her DH gets his pension which them takes them £10.00 over what the law allows a pension which he in turn had to work for 45 years before he got it and he paid enhanced NI contributions to get a bigger pension.

Unless she was made redundant BECAUSE she was 58, I don't see how that's age discrimination?

Your aunt loses out on JSA because of her household income, not her age. Not sure what the threshold is, so maybe she is getting a raw deal, but I don't see how that justifies giving younger people less money?

I have " an under 25" relative on JSA, she lives alone.

She cannot live on that amount.

I pay for a weekly bus pass for her, stock up her cupboards with basics and I've even bought her tampons. I but most of her toiletries, usually on offers.

I would like to know how you are supposed to get a haircut etc on that amount.

A lot of the jobs that she goes for won't consider "under 25's, let alone an under 21 year old.

There isn't jobs got everyone. As more and more retailers close, there isn't even seasonal work, to pull peopleboutbofbpoverty.

I'm in Liverpool, I can see things going back to how they were in the 80's.

If the housing available was of a decent liveable standard, that would also help.

But the money that people scrapped together for decorating etc, is now having to be paid out to top up their rent.

As I have said before if a younger person cant live on JSA they can get a job all the young people in my family (under 30 ) have got jobs The Isle of Wight is an unemployment black spot but even my cousin who leaves college this summer has had two job offers.

anybody who thinks a single person on JSA can manage on $72 a week please do a break down

$20 Food/Toiletries
$15 Gas/Elec
$10 Internet/Phone
$5 Council tax/water
$5 Clothes/shoes

ie $55/w essentials, leaving $17/w for everything else.

It's tight but manageable.

If we want to talk age discrimination, surely the most obvious thing is that under-25s get less JSA/Income Support, regardless of their situation? That's age discrimination for absolutely no reason at all.

Mrsdavid yes, people starving and freezing in winter just because they happen to be under 25 is just fine And they can't 'just get a job' when there aren't any jobs! I have dyscalculia but somehow even I can work out that if 100s of people are applying for one job, there aren't enough jobs.

AKeyFox you wouldn't have to pay council tax on JSA but you would most likely have to top up your rent even if getting Housing Benefit. Also, you've left out transport costs, high enough with public transport and astronomical with a car. Also, under-25s automatically get less - when I was on Income Support/JSA I only had £10 a week to spend on food.

??

If we're talking age discrimination, how about minimum wage? I remember when I was 20 and had been working in the same job since I was 17. In fact, I was the longest serving member of staff there, so had more experience than everyone else. Yet I was also the lowest paid since we were all on minimum wage, and they were all over 21.

How is it ok for the government to assume that under 21s or 25s have less essential costs than older people?

Well precisely. And there are plans (or it might even have come into force) to stop housing benefit for childless under 25s.

So you would essentially be forced to rely on your parents having you for free. Good luck if they don't.

A key your figures are out of touch.

Just my council tax is 7 a week with single person discount and council tax support, also my water is 6 a week. My gas and leckie is double your quotes too. Then you have public transport at 25 a week and its easy to see JSA is impossible to live off if your single.

Everyone has to pay something to council tax now myrtle dove even if on income support,jsa etc mine is £5 a week

JSA's shit, but it's something. We need to be vigilant that the government doesn't go the same way as Australia (my home - dual citizenship), where Abbott intends to cut off unemployment benefits to anyone under 30 for the first 6 months and then work for the dole for the next 6 months. If you're unlucky enough to have not found work by then, you start the cycle again.

anybody who thinks a single person on JSA can manage on $72 week please do a break down

$20 Food/Toiletries
$15 Gas/Elec
$10 Internet/Phone
$5 Council tax/water
$5 Clothes/shoes

ie $55/w essentials, leaving $17/w for everything else.

It's tight but mana

what about travel?????

rent top up ????

6month payment for renewal of renting contract ????

haircut ?????

round here if unemployed you pay 20% of council tax

god forbid your kettle,ironing board etc breaks

the water amount would be way of here (south east)

i could go on and on

Just because there is a worse system doesn't mean we should settle for a broken unfair system.

It should be 90% of your old pay first couple of weeks and then gradually going down. JSA is such a tijny amount of welfare this would be affordable but its much easier to demonize the people who used too work but now find themselves with months of looking for a new job.

Unemployed play 25% of council tax here.

Yanbu.

My brother paid £15 in fares one week just to sign on and collect job application forms. He has to search jobs online daily and with no internet it means daily trips to library. He pretty much walks everywhere locally but cheap £10 trainers are a false economy as they don't last long but it all he can afford.
Now he is being asked to apply for minimum wage jobs 15 miles away so if he was lucky enough to get he would probably be worse off as he will than have to pay rent, full council tax and expensive bus fares.

Round here it's 25% council tax and my water is a tenner a week. So you're looking at fifteen quid a week for those two alone.

A bus ticket is £3.90 for the day (to sign on at least) and say a fiver for a taxi back from your shopping, unless you live within walking distance from the supermarket, so add a fiver a week at least for travel.

Water rates alone would be at least £5 per week. Council tax almost another £10 on top.

glad i asked for the breakdown

just proves that it's not as easy as some think,though i suspect that those who think its possible have not had to claim or been on it more than a couple of months

The benefits system is absolutely rotten to the core.

It supports far too many people who have never worked a day in their lives. People who have worked, saved, bought a home etc are shafted by it if they lose their jobs because it will never cover their mortgage, even for a few months. People with serious illnesses and disabilities are being shafted by it now because we just can't afford to keep supporting the freeloaders living on the edges so they are getting caught in the crossfire.

It makes me furious that so many people see it as a lifestyle choice when that is not its purpose. And don't start talking a lot of shit about goats and plasma tvs. Only on MN is the benefits system some kind of sacred cow. Out in RL people understand that it needs overhauled to support people who want to work for a living and people who genuinely can't. And of course there need to be other elements including affordable childcare and training.

I am speaking with lots of relevant experience here, having worked with clients who used the benefits system. That was an eye opener I can tell you - they were earning more in benefits and perks like housing than me. I've also seen family members struggling to survive on JSA and keep a roof over their heads. They managed because family helped them out and they went and found jobs. Shitty jobs, which they hated, but did them because they had to until they found something better. That's life. So do I think people should be able to turn jobs down and say fine I'll just stay on benefits? No, I don't.

Having been on JSA in the past, I don't buy the idea that there are being "languishing" on it. Yes you can live on it, but it's bloody hard! I don't believe there is anyone on JSA who wants to be on it, it's just soul destroying.

My DH has just been made redundant. the Benefit Officer told him he probably wont get anything as I earn just over the £113 a week the Government says is enough for us to live on as a couple. We may not qualify for CTC as I dont work enough hours. My wages will pay the interest on our mortgage and maybe food. That's it. No gas, electric, water, tv licence, nothing. And we have a 12 year old DD growing like a weed.

We are both registered disabled, but choose to work, not claim ESA to live off of.

He is desperately trying to find work, and like Eliza's husband gets the interviews, but a) he is often overqualified, and B) they decide against him as he walks in as he uses a walking stick.

The longest he has been out of work in 35 years is 18 months, 3 years ago.

His redundancy package wasn't even a full months wages.

this wont go down well with some but i have known people that are unskilled and dont work,the reason is min wage,0 hrs contract poor conditions,no holiday pay and have to fight for being paid for what you work

no it's not right but i can see why they dont,how can you raise a family with such uncertanty,one week working 28hrs the next 13hrs,backwards and forwards to the council as you havent enough to cover the rent

some on MN havent a clue how the ones on the bottom rung of the ladder struggle

sorry gone of thread there

I think zero hours contracts should be banned personally. I fucking hate this government, the problem is that most Tories are well off born with a silver spoon in their mouth types who don't know anything about what it's like for ordinary people. They don't know hardship, they haven't got a fucking clue.

I believe in karma and really hope IDS gets what's coming to him. The arsehole.