People with disabilities and carers



If you have a disability or are a carer, you will be deemed to have good reason for giving up a job or not accepting a job offer if the travelling time would be unreasonable given your caring responsibilities or your health. In the first 13 weeks of your JSA claim, you would have good reason for not accepting a job offer if the travelling time to work is more than one hour each way. After 13 weeks, you would only have good reason if the travelling time was more than one and a half hours each way.



If your benefit payment is stopped, and you don’t have enough money to live on, you may be able to get a hardship payment. This is a reduced amount of JSA that is available to claimants after a two-week wait — despite the Department for Work and Pensions Decision Maker’s Guide acknowledging that this wait will often damage the claimant’s health.