Refused JA over 10€/week. Advice needed

brane.nikic87

Hi,

Can anyone please give a piece of advice on what to do?

My wife finished working for a company on 15/08 (it was a contract role) and we have applied for Jobseeker over mywelfare on 07/09/2020.

Today we got the next answer:

" I am writing to you about your claim for Jobseekers Allowance on the 07-Sep-2020. I have decided that you are not entitled to this payment on the grounds that:
Jobseekers Allowance is not paid if a person's weekly means are more than the amount of Jobseekers Allowancethat would be payable to them based on their family circumstances.
The reason for this decision is that the weekly rate payable to you based on your family circumstances is €373.70. Your weekly means are €384.00.
This decision has been made in accordance with Section 142(2)(b) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended. "

Can anyone please share some advice on what should we do now as she is pregnant with our 2nd child and she was trying to find another job but without any luck? Also, she can't go to maternity as she is not working at the moment.

Also, we did not want to apply for JA but for JB but you can't choose that option on mywelfere.ie

Thank you

SourSessions

Without being obvious, if she has the contributions, applying for JB is the solution here.

square ball

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

Hi,

Can anyone please give a piece of advice on what to do?

My wife finished working for a company on 15/08 (it was a contract role) and we have applied for Jobseeker over mywelfare on 07/09/2020.

Today we got the next answer:

" I am writing to you about your claim for Jobseekers Allowance on the 07-Sep-2020. I have decided that you are not entitled to this payment on the grounds that:
Jobseekers Allowance is not paid if a person's weekly means are more than the amount of Jobseekers Allowancethat would be payable to them based on their family circumstances.
The reason for this decision is that the weekly rate payable to you based on your family circumstances is €373.70. Your weekly means are €384.00.
This decision has been made in accordance with Section 142(2)(b) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended. "

Can anyone please share some advice on what should we do now as she is pregnant with our 2nd child and she was trying to find another job but without any luck? Also, she can't go to maternity as she is not working at the moment.

Also, we did not want to apply for JA but for JB but you can't choose that option on mywelfere.ie

Thank you

Your family rate will increase once the child is born so if your means stay the same she will be entitled to a payment, a small payment but she will be entitled to it so you can reapply again then.

If your wife has enough contributions she may have an entitlement to Jobseekers Benefit or to Maternity Benefit a couple of weeks before due date.

StackSteevens

SourSessions wrote: »

Without being obvious, if she has the contributions, applying for JB is the solution here.

The same paper application form is used for JA and JB - so if an applicant is eligible for JB then they should automatically get it.

Although I cannot confirm the situation regarding online applications, it seems reasonable to assume that the same assessment process would take place.

brane.nikic87

Thank you all for your answers.

Well, she does have 105 PRSI Class A stamps from 2015 - 2019 (and another 32 weeks done in this year) as she was mostly at home taking care of our first child.
I am not a huge fan of citizen information because last time when we were there (2 years ago - Limerick city office) the man was less than helpful. He did not even want to hear our situation (how much do we earn, how many children do we have, or any other info) he just said straight away "You can't claim anything", "you have no rights", "you can leave now" and things like that.

Can I request a hearing with the deciding officer just to see how did he come to the 384€ figure and is there anything else we can do to get this right?

StackSteevens

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

Thank you all for your answers.

Well, she does have 105 PRSI Class A stamps from 2015 - 2019 (and another 32 weeks done in this year) as she was mostly at home taking care of our first child.
I am not a huge fan of citizen information because last time when we were there (2 years ago - Limerick city office) the man was less than helpful. He did not even want to hear our situation (how much do we earn, how many children do we have, or any other info) he just said straight away "You can't claim anything", "you have no rights", "you can leave now" and things like that.

Can I request a hearing with the deciding officer just to see how did he come to the 384€ figure and is there anything else we can do to get this right?

They should have sent her a sheet outlining how the €384 was calculated.


The answer to your question is that she has 21 days (SHARP - don't be late!) to lodge an appeal, and she can also ask for a review, which means an internal re-examination of the documentation and the calculations.

Note that she will need to make a case - i.e. an argument - as to why she is appealing - she can't just say that it's not fair!

Citizens Information is staffed by a mixture of paid staff and volunteers. Most of the volunteers are excellent, but you can get the odd bad egg - maybe you were just unlucky! Currently only the paid staff are working, and they're all very competent and helpful.

Fuzzyduzzy

My wife had this issue too but it you contact them they will sort it out

square ball

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

Thank you all for your answers.

Well, she does have 105 PRSI Class A stamps from 2015 - 2019 (and another 32 weeks done in this year) as she was mostly at home taking care of our first child.
I am not a huge fan of citizen information because last time when we were there (2 years ago - Limerick city office) the man was less than helpful. He did not even want to hear our situation (how much do we earn, how many children do we have, or any other info) he just said straight away "You can't claim anything", "you have no rights", "you can leave now" and things like that.

Can I request a hearing with the deciding officer just to see how did he come to the 384€ figure and is there anything else we can do to get this right?

You can phone the office and look to speak to the deciding officer.

The contributions for 2018 Calender year are relevant for a Jobseekers Benefit claim. The payment would be based off the number of contributions and also average earnings.

The appeal process can be slow. I would look at the means calculations on your decision letter and check if the information the deciding officer has is incorrect. If the information matches up you may not have grounds for appeal and could be waiting for months for nothing.

The means from employment is calculated based on : Assessable weekly earnings - €20 per day = total x 60% = weekly means from work.

PRSI contributions, union dues, superannuation, PRSA's and AVC's are deductable from gross pay. If the gross pay less these deductions is over €700.00 per week the means assessment is probably accurate.

brane.nikic87

Thank you all for the answers.

square ball wrote: »

The appeal process can be slow. I would look at the means calculations on your decision letter and check if the information the deciding officer has is incorrect. If the information matches up you may not have grounds for appeal and could be waiting for months for nothing.

We did not get means calculation with the decision letter. I can ring the decision officer and ask him for this.

square ball wrote: »

The means from employment is calculated based on : Assessable weekly earnings - €20 per day = total x 60% = weekly means from work.

PRSI contributions, union dues, superannuation, PRSA's and AVC's are deductable from gross pay. If the gross pay less these deductions is over €700.00 per week the means assessment is probably accurate.

Do we get any reductions per child - per day? And how is this calculated if only I am working and she is not, do the halve my salary on two of us?

So if I earn lets say 1000/week gross, do they take 1000 - 100 (20x5) = 900 * 60% = 540€ means tested.

Also, does anything else goes into this as a reduction, let say rent, loans, childminding...?

square ball

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

Thank you all for the answers.



We did not get means calculation with the decision letter. I can ring the decision officer and ask him for this.




Do we get any reductions per child - per day? And how is this calculated if only I am working and she is not, do the halve my salary on two of us?



So if I earn lets say 1000/week gross, do they take 1000 - 100 (20x5) = 900 * 60% = 540€ means tested.

Also, does anything else goes into this as a reduction, let say rent, loans, childminding...?

Request the means letter. Look over it. It will give a full breakdown of the calculations. No reductions per child part of the family rate includes the child dependent increase - family rate is calculated at €203.00 (personal rate) + €134.70 (adult dependent) + €36.00 (child under. 12).

You can get €20.00 deducted for work per day up to a maximum of 3 days so €60.00 deducted.

The means are calculated based on gross pay (before tax) less the deductions mentioned in my previous post less €20 per day up to 3 days so €60 and the balance is multiplied x 0.60 to give you your weekly means.

More information is available and explaining more clearly on the Citizens information and social protection websites.

No other deductions for loans, mortgage and childminding are taken into account unfortunately.

You can apply for rent supplement but that is assessed separately to Jobseekers.

brane.nikic87

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

Thank you all for the answers.



We did not get means calculation with the decision letter. I can ring the decision officer and ask him for this.




Do we get any reductions per child - per day? And how is this calculated if only I am working and she is not, do the halve my salary on two of us?

So if I earn lets say 1000/week gross, do they take 1000 - 100 (20x5) = 900 * 60% = 540€ means tested.

Also, does anything else goes into this as a reduction, let say rent, loans, childminding...?

Check your welfare.ie account for the calculations. It might be there in notifications.

mystic

If the weekly means are €384 that would imply the weekly earnings are about €700.
If €384 is 60% => 100% is €640. Add in €60 (€20x3) giving a total of €700.
Means are calculated by the system once the earnings details are keyed in.

brane.nikic87

No, the calcs were not included. There is only one pdf attached and the first page Is a refusal letter and the second one is a blank page (I presume this is where the calcs should be).

Thank you all for your answers, we will go to citizen information this morning and see is there anything w can do.

brane.nikic87

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

No, the calcs were not included. There is only one pdf attached and the first page Is a refusal letter and the second one is a blank page (I presume this is where the calcs should be).

Thank you all for your answers, we will go to citizen information this morning and see is there anything w can do.

Did you check your mywelfare account?

brane.nikic87

Yes, I did. This is where we got the answer from them and as I said they only had 1 pdf attached and nothing else is there.

I have asked for means test calculations and hopefully, things will be much more clear once we get it.

brane.nikic87

We got the means test yesterday and everything seems to be as you have said.

Do we have any grounds to appeal the decision (probably not) but it's worth asking?

wifey28

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

We got the means test yesterday and everything seems to be as you have said.

Do we have any grounds to appeal the decision (probably not) but it's worth asking?

If the means test is accurat then you cannot appeal the jsa decision, your simply over the means to qualify. Have you tried calling and asking about jsb? Does she have enough prsi to cover it?

brane.nikic87

She has more than 104 contributions paid but only 10 in 2018 as she has started working in November. We will try to apply for JB early next year as the relevant year will be 2019 then.

StackSteevens

brane.nikic87 wrote: »

She has more than 104 contributions paid but only 10 in 2018 as she has started working in November. We will try to apply for JB early next year as the relevant year will be 2019 then.

If she's still pregnant early next year then you may not be eligible for JB. Consider claiming Maternity Benefit.

PhoenixParker

Mat benefit is claimable from week 24 of pregnancy as far as I know. (Thats the earliest you can go on mat leave). It only runs for 26 weeks from then though so consider where you'll stand after the 26 weeks are up.

brane.nikic87

To claim maternity benefit she needs to be employed and she can't get any job at the moment because of this Covid situation and to be honest no one wants to hire someone that is going to leave them after three months.