In Work Credit |

Over View

You could get up to £60 a week In Work Credit if you’re a single parent and you stop claiming benefit because you’re starting work or self-employment.

You have to qualify, and apply for In Work Credit within 5 weeks of starting work or self-employment.

Any money you get isn’t taxed and won’t affect your other benefits.

[box type=”warning”] You must have started claiming a qualifying benefit on or before 1 October 2012[/box]

Eligibility

To qualify for In Work Credit you must:

be a single parent with a child under 16
start your job before 1 October 2013
expect your job to last at least 5 weeks
work at least 16 or more hours a week on average
earn at least the National Minimum Wage
stop claiming a ‘qualifying benefit’
go straight from claiming the benefit to starting your job
claim it within 5 weeks of starting your job

Work can include self-employment.

Qualifying benefits

You must have:

been getting a qualifying benefit for at least 52 weeks before starting work
started claiming the qualifying benefit on or before 1 October 2012

London

To qualify, you must stop getting one of these benefits before you start work:

Employment and Support Allowance
Incapacity Benefit
Severe Disablement Allowance
Jobseeker’s Allowance
Income Support

Outside London

To qualify, you must stop getting one of these benefits before you start work:

Jobseeker’s Allowance
Income Support
Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) paid for under 13 weeks

Your Employment and Support Allowance will only qualify if you got it because both of these apply:

your child was too old for you to qualify for Income Support
you were too ill to qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance

Exceptions

You might still qualify if your partner was claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or Income Support and you were getting benefit.

What You Could Get

You’ll get:

£40 a week if you live outside London
£60 a week if you live in London

Jobcentre Plus can tell you if you qualify as living in London for In Work Credit.

You can get In Work Credit for up to a year, as long as you carry on working an average of 16 hours or more a week and continue to meet the other conditions for getting In Work Credit.

No new awards of In Work Credit will be made from 1 October 2013.