On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 18:03:12 +0100, PoP
wrote:

On Sat, 4 Oct 2003 16:50:59 +0100, "BillR"
wrote:

You don't get such grants from the Job Centre directly but the first step is
to get income-related Job seekers allowance.
To get this you have to sign on every 2 weeks.
From this other benefits such as income support and housing benefits will
flow.

That is exactly right. In fact I thought that they recently changed
the rules so that the sign-on was every week?

If you have any kind of savings of a few £k, or your partner has or is
working then you won't get any of these.

It's worse than that even. If you have children and the grandparents
have given them sizeable funds for their building society accounts
then the terms are that you have to spend that money before you go
claiming off the state.

Having been thru claiming the dole (or JSA as it is today) a couple of
times this is a fiendish exercise at best - you get treated like a
criminal for claiming JSA, assumed to be a no-gooder who doesn't want
to work.

Interestingly, if you have money in shares then you don't have to own
up to it when you claim JSA.

Yes you do. You have to declare all negotiable valuables such as money
in bank/BS accounts property and shares. Includes money you have in
your pocket too. I've been through this a few times since being made
redundant in 96.

They crawl all over your bank and
building society accounts, but not shares. Little wonder that better
off people get preferential treatment compared with the average guy on
the street!

If you're incapable of work due to some disability then you should claim the
benefit appropriate to that, these are medically investigated.

For sure. And I understand it can be a long and painful (literally
perhaps!) process to get awarded anything. Their starting position is
that you are fit for work and it is for you to disprove that.

Indeed.
I'm disabled but not sufficiently so to make me incapable of *any*
work. But if you have a health problem you can kiss goodbye to regular
work unless the employer is desperate. Fortunately my pension matures
in a few years time so they can stuff it.



--
Alan G
"The corporate life [of society] must be
subservient to the lives of the parts instead
of the lives of the parts being subservient to
the corporate life."
(Herbert Spencer)