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, stupid phone! Can I also add: washing clothes and bedding for one person in a bath= annoying but OK.
Washing clothes for adult + kids + bedding + towels = nightmare.
Seriously Hedwiggity it gets so much less bareable as time goes on.

Hah! I think I've got it! Maybe hedwigitty was paid fortnightly. Income Support is now paid every two weeks, according to https//:www.gov.co.uk/income-support/what-youll-get

£100 every two weeks for an IS claim a couple of years ago would make sense.

Hed that means you got £50 a week, just so you know.

income support rates
This link should work.

Hed, people could also just cut themselves off from the water / sewerage and just defecate In their local park. Could save 5 a week too. I guess people could live of grey squirrels, slugs and rats too.

About person on JSA versus person on minimum wage- the lone parent might be entitled to Children's Tax Credits. We have been receiving CTC, whether we're working, or claiming JSA. And yes, I informed HMRC about our income, at all times.

You definitely get Working Tax Credit over 24 hours. Well, if you claim it. The government saved months of it on us, because the idea that we would be entitled to more money because we weren't claiming JSA was so absurd, it never occurred to us to see if we were.

I dont think you could wash cloth nappies (which saved me a fortune in the nappy days) in the bath. The water wouldnt be hot enough. Nor towels and bedding come to think of it.

I think the rates should be different according to if you have previously worked. And maybe also if youve worked in say the previous 6m.
That would avoid people moving from education straight to JSA (or they would get less). And also be pointing out 'be grateful for what you are getting as you havent yet paid any in to get some out'
Encouraging you to give a go at any job to get some experience.
Silly really to keep sending so many to uni when the jobs for it arent there. Better to encourage some to start work or train while working or learn something more useful than at uni. Where they dont teach you what will help in a job.
I have to say i found it odd where someone is open to doing sex work but wont work in an abattoir.
Certainly i know people who were happy to stay on benefits. As PP have pointed out what needs changing is the minimum wage, it needs to pay to work.
Also childcare costs are way too high. Nursery near me is 52 a day well even earning £100 a day after expenses like tax and ni you end up with very little in return for leaving child with someone else.

^
If that same single mother got herself a job on NMW, it states that she would be a whole 5.75 PW better off, if she worked 10 hours a week. This does not include transport costs, so unless she could walk to work, she would be worse off working than being unemployed.^

Just re-read this. Under 16 hours? She'll get income support if her youngest child is under five.

I think the rates should be different according to if you have previously worked. And maybe also if youve worked in say the previous 6m.
That would avoid people moving from education straight to JSA (or they would get less). And also be pointing out 'be grateful for what you are getting as you havent yet paid any in to get some out'
Encouraging you to give a go at any job to get some experience.
Silly really to keep sending so many to uni when the jobs for it arent there. Better to encourage some to start work or train while working or learn something more useful than at uni. Where they dont teach you what will help in a job.
I have to say i found it odd where someone is open to doing sex work but wont work in an abattoir.
Certainly i know people who were happy to stay on benefits. As PP have pointed out what needs changing is the minimum wage, it needs to pay to work.
Also childcare costs are way too high. Nursery near me is 52 a day well even earning £100 a day after expenses like tax and ni you end up with very little in return for leaving child with someone else.

naty1
I have to say i found it odd where someone is open to doing sex work but wont work in an abattoir.

Er, good for you?

Different people place different moral values on different things. Have you, for example, heard of vegetarians?

hedwiggity ironic that you commented on that people want a lifestyle they cannot afford when you are TTC, also claiming JSA and wanting to know if you'll be entitled to things like a Sure Start grant.

"Silly really to keep sending so many to uni when the jobs for it arent there" Yeah, because working hard for your education and putting yourself in a better position to get a job in the long term with better prospects of progression is silly .

naty1 what your describing is the welfare state as originally conceived, a system of "national insurance" against e.g: unemployment, illness, childbirth. It has some advantages- particularly claimants feel less of a stigma because they've "paid in"
The reason it fell out of favour and was superseded by a system of means testing is that it doesn't really meet the needs of people who are disabled from childhood, people widowed after being a housewife or anyone else who for one reason or another has not been able to make national insurance payments.
Its also worth noting that, at the time national insurance was introduced, the government could provide you a job in a nationalised industry and could mandate private sector employers to take on a certain percentage of disabled people. So there weren't the barriers to work that exist today

candycoatedwaterdrops

Well done!

I love that we've been lectured on how easy it is to wash clothes in the bath by someone who doesn't know the difference between laundry bleach and Domestos toilet cleaner.

I get £249 a month on universal credit. If I didn't have a partner I would be on my arse.

Yes it is silly when lots dont have good basic gcses. Cant spell or do maths and still dont have the skills employers need.
Cut it back to the top students as it was before and then the people who can benefit from it wont have to pay a ridiculous £9k a year.
Its worth it if you need it fir a specific job.
Unis teach what they know not what is useful.

Katkins1: People these days very rarely go to Uni to "better themselves and put themselves in with a chance of progressing" etc - it appears as if most go there to get pissed up for 3 to 4 years (admittedly there are quite a lot that do still work hard!).

University Education for anything other than very specialised, specific roles is growing more and more irrelevant.

My Brother got an excellent grade in an Environmental Management degree, but it's useless to him - he's got a role in something completely different and worked his way up to a senior position. I left school at 16, didn't do further education but got myself on the working ladder (with the 6 month blip mentioned earlier), and through several career moves have found myself in a senior position also, with my current employer funding my second degree, alongside having a family and a full time job - to better myself and my career opportunities.

• I'd be interested to see how many people actually get jobs relating to their degree upon completion, if I was estimating, I'd be suprised if it was more than 30% (I'll be facetious and exclude doctors etc from this!).

naty1 - exactly. I'd be tempted to suggest that Uni's tailor courses to suit where the shortfall is within the overall skilled workforce.

In response to some of the other posters earlier - JSA is there for people who need it, it's meant to be there to tide the gap between roles, not to fund your life. If you cannot work, there is help (and should arguably be more help) for people genuinely incapacitated. Too many people rely on it - as hedgwiggin said, cut your cloth to suit. You can quite easily live on JSA in terms of food and clothing - you don't go out for 3 course meals, buy suits and watch SKY TV if you are on JSA........

Lastly - how does someone get made redundant from every role (poster on previous page) - 4 or 5 times? I genuinely cannot understand this. I can understand once or twice dependant on the industry or potential insolvency of a company, but anymore times than that, there's an underlying problem.

Wrt the several redundancies. It really depends on when it happened. Where i am in NI there was a period a few years ago when redundancies were being announced daily on the news. And of course it is last in=first out so someone could easily find themselves being made redundant several times in a few years.

Not sure I'd entirely agree that we all go to get pissed up, but yeah, I accept for the majority that's the case. For some of us, it makes a real difference, though. You are right about JSA as a 'stop gap' until you find a job, too.

Yes, we get it, in your day, one did not need a degree. However, the job market has changed. Perhaps only in response to increased numbers of graduates, but nevertheless it has changed. So many jobs are restricted to graduate-only.

The percentage of people who get jobs directly related to their degree is not the most important figure. It's what percentage of jobs require a degree or 15 years experience in the field?

There used to be an earnings related supplement to both unemployment benefit and sickness benefit. The ceiling for the salary on which it was based was about half the average income, or less.

Then the 1979 Conservative government scrapped it.

I'm old enough to have received it

Can I just remind everyone that there are 2.5 million people unemployed.

That means there are not enough jobs for everyone That is a simple, factual, unambiguous truth.

If you are unfortunate enough to lose your job through redundancy, co. bankruptcy etc you are competing with 2.5 million other people from the first day. Ergo it is unlikely you will get a job for a while, if ever.

If you have worked for some time (perhaps decades) you have paid a lot of tax and NI. It is NOT Govt money you get, it is YOUR money paid by you for this exact eventuality.

If benefit was paid through a commercial insurance scheme it would be shut down by trading standards. JSA is a disgustingly small return on decades of paying in PAYE & NI. And the sanctimonious, paternalistic attitude of those fortunate to never have been obliged to claim benefit, like IDS, Gideon and shiny Dave, not mention Balls, Milli cent et al, is even more disgusting.

OP, YADNBU

To put things in perspective randomfemale is the poster who in Sept 2012 was still sticking up for certain members of the police on the Hillsborough thread even AFTER the truth came out. So im not surprised to see inflammatory comments from her on here.

'i claimed income support when i was in college as i was unable to sign on due to exams etc and it was £100'

Your full of shit, I claimed income support with no kids when I was 16-17 and it was £45 a week (its now £56, as it has risen with inflation since 8 years ago but still never has and never will be £100 a week). You may have had EMA on top of that, which was £30 a week. I got that aswell when I was actually in study.

'naty1
I have to say i found it odd where someone is open to doing sex work but wont work in an abattoir.'

I find it odd when someone is so self absorbed they cannot grasp that different people have different morals and find different things less appealing than others. Damn right I would rather shag some boring married 45 year old than cut a cow or pigs head off, or even see such a thing being done.

Sorry not 8 years, 6!