Question about benefit entitlement

sparrow91

Hello everyone. My mum is disabled and currently receives PIP as well as Widows benefit and income support.
Weekly she gets:
80.74 Widows Benefit
25.91 Income Support

and 466.74 monthly for PIP.

She also receives housing benefit which is paid directly to the landlord.

My question is could she claim ESA and would it leave her better or worse off? It's very confusing, I understand she might lose some benefits if she does so, so i'm wondering if it's worth it.  She lives in a 3 bedroom counsel house with no savings.

Thanks for any advice.

poppy123456

Hi,

What's the reason she's claiming Income support? Is it because she's a Carer or does she have a child under 5?

Sam_Alumni

Hi @sparrow91

We have a benefits calculator here that is a good starting point to figuring out what support your mum may be entitled to

sparrow91

poppy123456 said:

Hi,

What's the reason she's claiming Income support? Is it because she's a Carer or does she have a child under 5?

Hi. I've looked at her latest income support letter and it doesn't specifically say. She's not a carer and all her kids are adults.

It says something like, the law says you need to live on £106
then they add 20 something income support to the 81 widows benefit to make it add up to 106. It's like a top up.

Part of the 106 is made up of some money because "you are sick or disabled", which confuses me because she is not on ESA.

mikehughescq

A certain proportion of people get IS because they didn’t have the contribution record to get what used to be Incapacity Benefit and, unlike ESA, there was no means-tested version. IS was/is effectively the means-tested version of ESA. However, contributory ESA also overlaps with certain widows benefits and you only get the higher of the two so whichever way you dress it up she’s not going to get any version of ESA and she’s better off without it too as unlike ESA, IS will largely leave you alone in terms of work-related activity too. 

sparrow91

I see. Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate everyone's help.

BenefitsTrainingCo

Hello sparrow91

Please note that Universal Credit is replacing some benefits including income related ESA,  Income Support and Housing Benefit.  The roll out of this benefit is by postcode and so different areas will be affected at different times. I have put a link to a webtool below, if you enter your postcode it will tell you on making a new claim for benefit whether you HAVE TO claim Universal Credit.

https://universalcreditinfo.net/

Universal credit is significantly different to e.g. Income Support, Housing Benefit in terms of the rate of pay, how frequently payments are made and who payments go to.

If you are at all unsure contact a local advice centre for help. 

Maria