If people think they have it bad, think about myself. Disabled and living in England on just over £300 a month.
That isn’t enough to live off. Rent alone anywhere costs more than that so I couldn’t afford rent anywhere, plus there is food and medical prescriptions on top of that every single month.
This is what the government think is ok for me to live on. I once spoke to DWP and said that one day I might be homeless, disabled living on the streets and they replied “yes that is possible, but nothing I can do”. They can’t give you more if you don’t tick ALL the boxes.
Spoke to my MP too but they just forwarded it to parliament who said nothing they can do.
I can’t get ESA as I haven’t paid enough National Insurance contributions as I couldn’t work full time before being unable to work at all! That means I didn’t pay NI contributions, as you only pay them when working quite a lot of hours a week.
Ironically if I had money I could pay for the months I didn’t earn NI contributions which is a lot of money to do so, but then would be eligible for ESA.
How is that fair?
If I had money I could get ESA, but as I can’t, I can’t get it.
I have to go through the process of claiming ESA just to get NI credits, so I have to fill in all the forms, do the medical reviews, send in fit forms (old sick forms) all the time just to get credits alone. They send letters saying “we can’t pay you” yet you have to do this just to get credits in the hopes of in a few years getting the money?!
They should just let you have ESA if you are disabled and unable to work and not rich!!
Instead you have to jump through massive amounts of hoops to get pennies.
