My wife has not worked for exactly one year after suddenly becoming ill in December 2009
For 2008 she only worked part time and didn't pay tax.
For the previous 29 years she worked full time mostly in the NHS.
My wife is now under pain management and is looking for work again. At this point she was advised to sign on. However she has been told she is not entitled to any form of benefit at all as she hasn;t contributed for two years.
Sounds like a rum deal to me.
Luckily it looks like she might have a job with a charity to go to.
What do you think before I go all Daily Mail?

Obviously you need proper advice but roughly I think this is what might be happening.

She will not be entitled to benefits based on her NI contributions as she does not have enough contributions. she will not be entitled to any benefits based on income / poverty as your income is taken into account so she is not poor enough.

something like that anyway.

go get real advice if you think she is being diddled

Hmmm, contribution based jobseekers allowance may not be payable as it's based on national insurance contributions for the last two years. So, as you say, she doesn't seem to qualify for this.

The other type of jobseekers allowance, for those who aren't eligible for contribution based JSA, is income based. It's based on income and savings so if she (and you) has savings over a certain limit she won't qualify. I don't know what the limit is, sorry, but I guess the thinking is that if she has enough money to tide her over while looking for a job then she doesn't need the benefit. If her income was to fall below the limit then she'd be eligible.

Gah, beaten to it by a tandem rider 😡

Before all the armchair benefit experts dust off their calculators, try putting your details into entitled to. Its very good, and quite accurate.

http://www.entitledto.co.uk

Nice one steve. A man with real advice to the rescue

If one of you works more than 20 (or so) hours, then probably no entitlement for the other.

My input will be of no use to you now I'm afraid. You do need to be making NI contributions to get income support.

I think that she should have signed on straight off even if she took a "sick note" with her at the start. Even if you aren't entitled to Jobseekers (because you aren't looking for work) you will get NI contributions paid by submitting a sick note. So as long as she was getting treatment she would have only had to submit her sick note and not sign on.

As I said, no use to you now, sorry.

Try http://www.directgov.co.uk or visit CAB, though I doubt that there is anything to be done now.

Thanks for that.
Looks like she should have signed on when she became ill, though we both never thought she would be so ill for so long.
Not a problem, as some of the jobs look promising. Although her illness means she wont nurse again, the fact that she was involved in nursing in one way or another seems to act like an old club tie.
Would have been nice to have got something back, hey ho.

seek proper advice. the years that count for her NI contributions should be the two full tax years before the 'benefit year' she tries to claim benefit

so if she is claiming this year, they will be looking for contributions in tax years 07/08 and 08/09 to see if she qualifies

(it's more complicated than this, but that's a start…)

If you are working then i think she she is expected to sponge off you, get her to say she is single