Can a self employed person claim job seekers allowance?

[dot.hawkes]

my youngest son has been working as a self employed tiler for a few months but has been laid off, can he make an online JSA claim or would there be no point? What would he live off?

[theonlyone]

I don't know about self employed ..but I he is
looking for work he is entitled to Job Seekers
allowance ...get your lad to make friends with the
guys in the Q ..they will put him on the right
track ....Hope it works out for him ..

[sara3]

if he isn't working and hasn't paid enough National Insurance contributions, he may be entitled to JSA(IB), the IB being Income Based. it's means tested so they'll want to know all his financial info and that of his partner, if he lives with one.

you could try the the www.direct.gov.uk site, but I can't get it to open now!

[mixedup]

i am currently self employed and tried to claim i was told i needed a letter from the tax office confirming my last day of self employment or when i finished trading.

[dot.hawkes]

I think the CIS vouchers cover him for tax purposes though he's not said when he last had one.

[TCL-MUMPING]

There are two types of Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) one is JSA(CB) which is National Insurance Contributions based and the other is JSA(IB) which is income based. For the first one you need to have paid sufficient Employed contributions in the correct years (self-employed contributions wont count.) If yir son doesn't qualify for that, he may qualify for the income based one (think of it as Income support for the out of work)

[karene50]

my son was also self employed working for an agency he phoned them and did it all over the phone he got an appointment to go in and see them and he signed on at the same time.Hope he finds something soon its bad out there at the moment .

[tigwig]

My husband has been self employed for years. He has been out of work now for 4 months and cannot claim this benefit. He hasn't paid enough class 1 NI and I earn �4 more a week than the limit allowed to get the income based allowance.
It makes my blood boil when all the foreigners who come to this country get it when we can't.
Good job I have generous parents.

[TCL-MUMPING]

Foreigners in the same situation as you will also not qualify for JSA. There will always be those who only just fail to qualify for a benefit because of earnings or savings but there has to be a limit.

[tigwig]

Yes but I only earn �104 a week! If I was polish no doubt me and my family would have been housed for free and given free food vouchers.

[korbox]

And your opinion is based on what? To me it looks like it is purely based on your hatred to foreigners. Why do you think that anybody from Poland would be better off? Firstly, anybody from Poland wanting to work in this country has to learn English. I guess you don't have to, do you? Don't you think that it gives you a fairly good advantage over anybody from abroad (bloody foreigner in your language) wanting to work in UK? Secondly before anybody from Poland can apply for benefits he needs to prove that he spent 1 year in full employment.
I guess you are quite happy that workers from Poland pay taxes that cover some benefits going into English pockets?
Understand that Britain lost its colonies. End of exploitaion. It's time to start working.

[sstef]

tigwig, I complete agree with you! I'm in exactly the same situation! I'm self-employed and I'm only taking home £110 per week. I've trained for 3 yrs hairdressing, I was fully employed until my boss went bank-rupt and I was forced to go self-employed or loose my job! Now I'm working as much as I can self-employed, but business just isn't good enough now-a-days & theres only so much advertising you can do when theres so much competition out there! I can't even move premises at the moment because of my previous contact stateing that I cannot work within 1mile of my current salon & I can't drive! So my takings are expected to pay for all mine and my partners household bills, rent and buy us food & any new clothes we need. It's pathetic when some people get everything paid for, it's as long as your a pregnant teenager I think! Pfft!

[Carine09]

If you have been self-employed for some time, you will not have paid NI Class 1 contributions so will not be able to get any help unless you have very few savings. People who have been employed by a company get their Class 1 contributions paid, and even though you have probably paid your Class 2 and 4 contributions you do not get the allowance. Another example of gross unfairness and discrimination against people showing initiative!