Benefits?

[Ryoko]

My boy is 8 months old, I'm still under contract with my employer, I am on a zero hours contract, currently not working and haven't done so in 10 months, as I am waiting for the re-instatement of the night shift, so the only money I'm getting is Child Benefit.

Sent off the form for child tax credits haven't heard anything yet (probably going to moan about how can I be employed working 0 hours a week).

DF earns almost 24k a year.

so the question is, if I hand in my notice for the time being as there is no work available, can I claim JSA or IS?.

(we are in a private rented flat as well if that makes any difference).

Look on www.entitledto.co.uk - you will be able to get a personal calculation.

You probably won't get IS or JSA, unless you have good contributions, but I would guess at child tax credit (can I ask why you have left it so long to apply?) working tax credit as DF works, and you can claim JSA without getting money for it (sounds odd but it would mean your NI contributions would be paid (although they should be already as the carer of a child, presuming the child benefit is in your name) and you would get help finding work)

We just spent ages getting round to it, I mean first of all we didn't manage to get them on the phone to get an application form and the website was down until he was about 3-4 months old and then we just had trouble trying to fill it in with the pay office information and all that.

I think I get NI with the CB, I'm sure it said so in the letter, can we get Working Tax Credits as well as Child Tax Credits? DF says we don't because I'm not working and he earns too much, don't know where he heard that.

Your NI contributions are paid while you are getting child benefit (home responsibilities protection) but it is only counted for your pension, not JSA.

If you leave a job voluntarily then JSA could be stopped for that reason. You would probably need to show something like constructive sismaiisal or redundancy

Just do the clcultor on entitled to. It will tell you exactly where you stand, and you can play with it for different situations.

wtc goes on household income as a whole, with extra bits for the hours worked by various people in the house.

Says I can get what I'm getting/applied for plus something about 12 quid off council tax I will have to look into.

Thanks.

it's a fucking joke you can't get JSA, there is childcare around if you can afford it and this is a 24 hour city whats the excuse for saying mums can't be on JSA and have to get income support instead, you can have a kid and work full-time as well.

thats what I hate about this country the benefits system simply does not match what legal contract types and working pattens etc are around today, it's all stuck in 30 years ago, everyone working 9-5 on a permanent fixed term contract is all there is in their eyes, craziness.