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Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is a benefit for people who are unable to work due to illness or disability.
There are two types of ESA - you may be entitled to one or both of them:
To claim either type of ESA you need to be under State Pension age and have an illness or disability that affects your ability to work. You can't claim ESA if you’re claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support or Statutory Sick Pay.
You'll probably have to attend a medical assessment. After this you’ll be told whether you’re considered fit for work, or whether you’re entitled to ESA.
If you are entitled to ESA, you’ll be placed in the ‘work-related activity group’ or the ‘support group’. People in the support group are exempt from the benefit cap.
People in the work-related activity group get less money and are expected to prepare for an eventual return to the job market. If you don't, your benefit can be reduced for a period. You may be entitled to contributory ESA if you meet the National Insurance conditions. If you’re in the work-related activity group, contributory ESA is only paid for one year; if you’re in the support group there’s no time limit. You don't need to have paid any National Insurance contributions to get income-related ESA. The amount you get depends on your income, savings, whether you're single or a couple, whether you get disability or carer's benefits, and the result of your assessment. You can’t get income-related ESA if you have savings of more than £16,000.
Call Jobcentre Plus on 0800 055 6688 (textphone 0800 023 4888). They’ll ask you questions over the phone and fill in the form for you.
Or visit the GOV.UK website to download a claim form.
Download the guide Claiming benefits: a guide for people of working age (PDF 1.83 MB)
Download the factsheet Employment and Support Allowance (PDF, 251 KB)
Download the factsheet Calculating income-related Employment and Support Allowance (PDF 267 KB)
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Downloads
A download is a document (like a research report, a leaflet, or an application form) that can be transferred from our website to your computer. You can download a file, view it on your screen, print it, or save it to your computer.
PDF stands for ‘portable document format’.
Most downloads on this website are PDFs. We use this format to ensure that the document looks the same on everyone’s computer (website pages, by contrast, appear differently depending on how people have set their computer up).
Computers use a program called Adobe Acrobat Reader to download PDFs. If you try clicking on a link to download a PDF and it doesn’t work, you will need to install Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your computer.
The process is quite straightforward and is free.
PDFs cannot be changed. If you need to be able to type into a downloaded document (for example, if we are offering a letter template that you need to put your name on) we will provide it as a Microsoft Word document rather than a PDF. You can then download it, type into it and save it to your computer.
Downloads will open on your computer in a new browser window.
Inside this window (below all your web browser menus), there will be a toolbar with options for you to print or save the document.
Close the browser window to return to the Age UK website.
We have made every effort to make our PDFs accessible to screen readers. Here is an overview of your accessibility options available in Acrobat Reader. Please ensure that you have downloaded the latest version of Acrobat Reader from the Adobe Reader website to ensure that they are included in your version of the programme.
You can use Adobe Reader to read a PDF out loud with the following shortcut keys:
You can also convert a PDF into a web page by following these steps:
You can convert a PDF document into a text file for use with other software and hardware such as Braille printers by opening the PDF and choosing ‘Save as text’ from the File menu.
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