Hi all, My Wife and I are a bit confused and are not finding a straight answer from anywhere. My question is benefit’s related when unfit to work. I am currently still employed, yet have been signed off since August. I have been suffering with terrible fatigue and have played around with my hours at work as much as I financial can, I have reached a point when I am preparing to stop working. I have just been awarded PIP, after transferring from DLA, and as a result my Wife has been able to claim Carers allowance. When I become unemployed and unfit to return to employment, I believe I can claim ESA and my Wife can claim Income Support. I would then need to constantly supply sick notes and attend assessment days. Quite stressful. The other option we believe would be for my Wife to apply Income Support and to add me on to her claim. Has anybody else done it this way? We are wondering what the financial difference would be as we keep getting different answers from the benefit calculation sites. Thank you in advance for any advice. Many thanks Sean
your local town hall with have a welfare rights officer.
see them for advice.
good luck
carole x
If you claim ESA you should be put into the support group, not the work group, so you shouldn’t need to keep attending assessment days at the job centre. Your wife should be able to claim income support, however I believe that the Carers Allowance will be deducted from the Income Support. This will still be a netincrease in weekly payments. Both ESA and Income Support are means tested benefits whereas PIP isn’t means tested, but dependant on your PIP award there could be more benefits that are opened up - if you have standard rate mobility and you drive then you are eligible for a 50% reduction in your car tax (to access contact DVLA and they will ask you to write to them with your car registration booklet, plus a copy of a certificate that you should have with your PIP award and if you haven’t got this DWP PIP can send you one) there are also potential Council Tax discounts and access to disabled facility grants although these are both means tested.
Working out which benefits are best for you and doing the financial calculations is not a simple task and I would suggest that a call to your local CAB to ask for an appointment to do a benefits check for you would be time well spent. The CAB website has some really useful information and fact sheets that can help provide a degree of clarity, but an appointment with a CAB advisor would be my suggestion.
Good luck.
Thank you
Thanks JC,
Thankfully I was awarded the enhanced mobility, as I’m reliant on my wheelchair these days, my Wife drives and we get to keep our motability car.
I think CAB is a good idea thanks, they helped me complete the PIP form and were really helpful.
Thank you for your reply.
You can claim Income Support for yourself and your partner. Only one person in a family can claim Income Support at any one time. There are several types of premiums you may get, based on your and your partner’s circumstances. You may also get Income Support if you work less than 16 hours a week.
Hello Sophia
Welcome to the forum.
Were you aware that you’ve just answer a post last added to in 2016? So while your information may have been useful at the time, it is likely to be less so now.
It’s worth checking the date a thread was last used when you answer on.
If you wanted to start a new post of your own, you hit the New Thread button, give your thread a title, then write comments, thoughts, questions.
All the best.
Sue