Hello everyone!
Dumbass here, but the phrasing of this GOV.UK job seekers question causes me some confusing, im sure im over thinking it but i wanted a second opinion!

So

My timeline is

I had a job
I quit the job
I moved house
Was jobless for a little while
Got a job that didnt pay enough
Signed up for job seekers

Would being jobless for a short while (2-3months) class as a gap?

Thank you in advance
Sincerely
Dumbass

by Momento_Moriarty

25 comments

  2. Howdy – I’d say the answer to the question is ‘yes’.

    You had a gap in your employment.

  3. yes, the whole thing is designed to trip you up though.

    My claim had me living at an address that I wasn’t at as I lived 200 miles away. So I had to go into the job centre…

  7. Yes, the gap when you weren’t working is indeed a gap when you weren’t working.

  8. Obviously 3 months without a job would be classed as a gap in employment

  9. One could argue about something less than a week, but 2-3months is definitely a gap.

  10. /r/DWPhelp is the best place for any benefit related questions in future – though good to see you’ve got your answer here

  11. Yeah, that’s definitely a gap. GOV.UK is always trying to improve the wording of these questions, what about it confused you? It would be really helpful if you submit that as feedback on the service. There should be a link where you can submit feedback on each page and at the end of the journey.

  12. I’d say that relative to not a gap, a gap is definately a type of gap

  13. Have worked for DWP on UC. This question is to calculate whether you’ll get a 9 month long grace period from the benefit cap.

    The gap you state is definitely a qualifying gap to answer yes to

  14. Yeah, put that gap in. Try to remember the exact dates, if not just put the 1st of the month to the 30th/31st of the last.

  15. Just a reminder to everyone else commenting that these people walk amongst us, and more importantly they can vote.

  16. Yes. Why would you think that isn’t? Any gap in your employment is a gap in employment.

  18. I’m not asking this to be rude or anything, but why wouldn’t you have automatically considered 2-3 months a gap? What was it about the wording that confused you?

  19. If you can’t figure this simple question out, I think I know why you’re unemployed.

  20. As someone of reasonable intelligence who also chronically overthinks and gets stressed out by official forms I totally understand why you’d want to be 1000pc sure on this 🙂

  21. As someone who does tax returns I can sympathize with how confusing these questions can be sometimes. In your case it’s simply, you were unemployed so you had a gap yes.

  22. The question is aimed at seeing if you can be exempt from the benefit cap for a period, due to enough previous earnings. If you don’t have a high rent and/or lots of kids, it probably doesn’t matter.

  23. You should print that out and turn it into a rather smart casual jacket

  24. In a period of 9 months? Yeah a third of that time definitely counts as a gap!

  25. say yes and then when they ask you, say “I was one of the Avengers I bet you cannot guess who I was…billionnaire, philanthropist, visionary….and that’s why I’m claiming universal credit”

Leave a Reply