Having spent a particularly stressful day yesterday at, first the job centre, then at the housing office, left me feeling rather bewildered, and pretty low.
My hubby was laid off at the end of January, and despite applying for reams of jobs, has so far not been successful in finding a replacement.
We finally decided, after a great deal of tooing and froing, to go down the route of job seekers allowance as the rent money we put aside is unlikely to be replaced after the next payment.
Well, it seems we may not get any assistance as he had a stint of self employment some 20 months previous. And his contributions are not completely up to date.
I am glad the government is keeping the NI contributions aside and not putting them into the great big melting pot of revenue collections. Hahahaha.
When arriving home bad tempered and frayed, i contacted, as advised, the working tax credit people and was told on calculations based on 2007-8 we wouldnt be eligible to have any assistance, but to apply then wait for rejection then reapply and point out change of circumstances. I wasnt aware that a total gross salary of around £17 000 would be more than enough for a working couple to live on. Gross, not net. How mad is that?
I would love to see those that set these figures survive on such meagre money.
No wonder that credit has spiralled out of control, as in the event of emergencies the only way forward would be to take loans.
So here we sit waiting for a pile of rejection letters to arrive on the doorstep.
What happened to the safety net for these cicumstances?
I have to admit, the people we met were polite and kind, but their hands are tied.
I hear on the news this morning that there is a swath of 'highly skilled' white collar workers facing the dole queues and their skills are not being met by the job centres.
I think they need a 'snob seekers allowance' not 'job seekers', about time some of these overpaid office wallas rolled their sleeves up and did got their hands dirty, to appreciate the roll of the manual workers who have sooooo supported their jobs for sooooo long.
Got to go now, but will be back to add to this later.