confused pregnant lady trying to work out if she's eligable for Mat Allowance

[izchaz]

Hi all, apologies if this has been done to death on the boards.

I need to work out a) if I'm eligible for Maternity Allowance, and b) how I go about claiming it. I've tried for the past week to make sense of the guidelines, but I'm dyslexic and pregnancy has made me dumber than a box of rocks. I can't work out what proofs I need, or how I figure out what I might get, or even if it's worth my applying :-(

Background: I started my current job at roughly the same time that I fell pregnant (I'm 20 weeks now) after an employment gap of 6 months, I don't work regular hours, or even every week as I have other commitments. I hope to work until about 38 weeks provided all goes well. DH owns our house and he makes a little over 20k a year.

How screwed am I? And HOW does anyone make heads or tails of the guidelines? I feel like such an idiot for not being able to work this shit out!

Have you phoned up the maternity allowance helpline? I was similarly confused and they were really helpful, talked me through it all. If you explain that you are dyslexic they may be able to offer extra support as well.

PS don't worry, your brain will re-wire itself better and stronger in about 12 months time! I was amazed at the improvement in my reflexes and ability to multi-task once I had a 6mo

Grumpla - I didn't even realise there WAS a helpline! I will go in search of that and get them to help me. I haven't felt this stupid as a result of something I suspect is actually quite straightforward since I last had to do a UCAS form. It's infuriating! And every time I think I've nearly got it I have to go pee, and when I come back it's all mysteriously turned into a loop of gibberish again... SIGH!

Also thank you for responding, and for promising resumption of normal services in the brain dept at some point in the future!

Statutory Maternity Pay is dependent on the exact dates and how much you earn. You are likely to be eligible for maternity benefit though (which is different)

Virgil, I'm not applying for Maternity Pay (is that not paid by your job anyway?) I'm applying for Maternity Allowance, which is an HMRC/DWP thing. I think. God's. I'm going back to bed.

Use this government website to calculate whether you're entitled to SMA - you just put your dates etc. in and it will tell you.

You need to have worked 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before your due date, and you will need to send in payslips to prove this. They don't have to be consecutive, and if you have worked more hours some weeks make sure they are the ones you send in as your maternity allowance is based on either £136.78 a week, or 90% of your average earnings on the payslips you send in, you get the lower of these 2 amounts.

Hope that is a bit clearer!

Thanks Snowgirl, I will have a totter around through the link, and rockchick, thank you for clarifying. That is sort of what I'd concluded, I just didn't have much faith in my conclusion... sigh!