Family with two Children - Please Someone Explain!

shaughey

Registered User
Messages
25
My local Social welfare office seem unable to clearly answer any of our queries and we are struggling harder each week to cover costs.

Situation is:
I am on JB Benefit of E188p/w with half rate pay for each child.
Partner works p/time and is on x's and o's.

We've been told that regardless of the little amount of hours he works, he's only entitled to a maximum payment of E51p/w and that's including his half rate for the two children.

He also has a court ordered maintenance of E75p/w for another child that social won't take into consideration.

Before working p/time in this job (he's in it 6weeks) he was working for 7months in a different job (weekly average of 25hrs) without claiming any welfare so surely this entitles him to a JB Benefit rate now as opposed to an JB Allowance rate?!

We have a rent allowance of E45p/w although I don't know if this is assessed as means when calculating JB payment entitlements?

What is the 'capping level' or whatever the term is for our household?
Because by my maths our weekly income is:

Parent 1
188 personal payment
15 half rate child 1
15 half rate child 2

Parent 2
21 personal payment
15 half rate child 1
15 half rate child 2

45 rent allowance

Thats E313 p/w for 2 adults, two kids, maintenance for another, rent, esb, gas and food. Please someone tell me social are mistaken??
 
So him bringing in a wage is not money I can work into my budget as its not reliable and it does be very little anyway
 
Rent Supplement is not included in the means test for Jobseekers.

Your partner is means-tested on his earnings and the number of days he works - if his 18 hrs are spread over 4 days, for example, it may leave him worse off on Jobseekers than if it were spread over 2 or 3.

Was his means test done recently (i.e. based on his new job, rather than his old one)?

Full-rate Jobseekers for 2 adults and 2 children is €362.40 pw
 
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