Jobseeker's Allowance

[Cheesefreek]

Does anyone know why, when claiming Jobseeker's Allowance, you get paid nothing for the first three days of unemployment?

[Scarlett]

Because those 3 days add up to BILLIONS of days nationwide, and save the government a LOT of money.

It is very unfair. The way they used to do it was take your claim from the following Monday- so if you signed on on a Wednesday, your claim would start the following Monday, for admin reasons they like to have everything done in weeks.

I think the 3 day thing is the same sort of excuse. It takes that long to "turn around" the admin and paperwork.

[Cheesefreek]

Thanks for your reply Scarlett. My suspicions were correct. I'd love to know the "official" reason for this. It seems almost illegal. You can't get a straight answer from the people at the Job Centre. And there's no explanation on the website. Surely if your unemployed from Monday, you should be paid from Monday I would have thought.

[joko]

they take it from the day you contact them I think, if you don't do it immediately, they wonder why

[Cheesefreek]

Unfortunately joko, they don't take it from the day you contact them. If you contact them on the Monday, they ignore the first three days and payment starts from the Thursday. I was just wondering what their thinking was behind this.

[Scarlett]

Maybe you could get a straight answer from Citizen's Advice?

[joko]

perhaps they figure your wages may still be 'in effect', if you have just left a job. perhaps it depends on when you got your last pay packet and how much it was for?

I have never noticed them do this, but then i wasn't looking for it. it is strange though

[ursula62]

They deduct any days where you received payment in lieu of notice or holiday pay.

You aren't paid for the first three days of claiming SSP either, so it's no different from that really.

[zebra]

It is to run in line with the way sick pay was paid by companies and still is by a lot of places, you go sick on day 1 and you have 3 waiting days so statutory sick pay starts on day 4, hence the same with unemployment if that makes any sense, suspect it started to try and stop the couple of days sickies and if you were off for more than a few days it was probably genuine.