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  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Jobseeker's Allowance Megathread ver. We're all overqualified!

Another thing (I've got a bit of a "thing" about the Job Center and DWP!!). If you've been on benefits you are pretty much going to be living from week to week and even the most thrifty among us will be unlikely to save anything from 70 quid a week. The when you start work you may have to wait up to a month before your first wage whereas your benefits cut off immediately....what are you expected to do in the meanwhile?

This also happened to me after the time I mentioned in my post above and I assumed there would be some sort of back to work help or some sort of loan scheme that you can pay back out of your wages but apparently not (not since they scrapped crisis loans anyway). There is apparently a small payment that you can get if you have been unemployed over 6 months or so but you have to apply for it, it isn't automatic. I remember arguing with someone at the Job Center that how is this going to be an incentive for people to get off the dole and back to work when they are going to have to starve for their first month (assuming they can even afford to the transport costs to get them to work in the first place).

Fair enough if you have family who can lend you the money until your first wage but what if (like me) you don't?

The whole system is just so fucked up and ill thought out and appears to be designed to make it as uncomfortable as possible for you to stay on benefits but as hard as possible to actually come off. As for these ridiculous work skills training courses that they send you on or they stop your money...what a fucking joke?

The one they sent me on was basically how to switch on a computer and a 8 hour class in how to spell your own name. They are just so badly thought out. It's like someone has said "lets send these twats on a course so they aren't getting paid to do nothing" but no-one has bothered to think about what to include to make it worthwhile. The people in my little class varied from someone with a masters degree to someone who couldn't read or write and it seems they tailor the course to the lowest common denominator.

Also the companies that they sub-contract these courses out to are a fucking disgrace. They make it compulsory to attend meetings with your adviser (a misnomer if ever there was one - of which I had about 10 different ones as they never seemed to last more than a week making any form of continuity impossible) who do absolutely nothing whatsoever to help you actually find work. It used to make me so mad. At the end when I managed to get another contract with a different ambulance service (entirely of my own doing BTW and without any help from them whatsoever) they asked if they could use me as one of their "success stories" to show what a great job they were doing..... I said absolutely not under no circumstances. When they asked why I told them in no uncertain terms what a bunch of absolute useless twats they were. A month or two later a government survey came out showing that the number of people finding work who had attended these "back to work programs" was LOWER than those who had not...

All in all an absolute fucking disgrace. Anyone who is unemployed and doing their best to get back into work has my deepest sympathy because it seems like the whole system is set up to punish you for not having a job while at the same time make it as hard as possible for you to actually find one. The only way you are going to find one is to do it on the back of your own efforts because the schemes in place that are designed to help you are utter shite.

Mind you this was several years ago now, I'd be interested to know if anything has changed (although somehow I doubt it)..

Phew!! glad I got that of my chest!
 
If you inform the JC that you have found work before you close your claim, they can pay your travel fee's and give you an amount (it's up to them to decide how much) of money towards things like food and expenses. This must be done before you sign off though, as once you've signed off, there isn't anything they can do for you as effectively, your claim has been closed.

You can also get money towards clothes for an interview or anything you'd need for that specific job (within reason) such as PPE or a uniform.
 
Wenlock said:
If you inform the JC that you have found work before you close your claim, they can pay your travel fee's and give you an amount (it's up to them to decide how much) of money towards things like food and expenses. This must be done before you sign off though, as once you've signed off, there isn't anything they can do for you as effectively, your claim has been closed.

You can also get money towards clothes for an interview or anything you'd need for that specific job (within reason) such as PPE or a uniform.
Click to expand...

Really? That must be relatively new as I specifically asked at the time and they said no (we are going back a few years mind).

I remember thinking that they would have to change the system as just giving people no help at all was unsustainable as people would be discouraged from finding work.

The only help that was available at that time was a one week bus pass from the company who provided the back to work schemes (BTCV in this case - not the Job Centre or DWP themselves) plus a 10 pound Primark voucher for interview clothes (a shirt basically as even in Primark your not going to get much for a tenner).

At the time there was definitely no help for food or expenses but it's good they've improved the system. This was just after the crisis load scheme had been scrapped and they had obviously scrapped it without implementing a satisfactory replacement for people making the transition from benefits to work.
 
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