SW entitlements for 65 year old whose working hours are reduced?

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Mpsox

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Hopefully someone with more knowledge on SW payments can assist me here.

I have a family member who was 65 on Jan 1 She currently works 35 hrs a week for a charity at just above minimum wage. She is planning on retiring on Dec 31st. She has worked for the charity for approx 20 years.

For various reasons, she is contemplating reducing her working hours this year to approx 20 hours a week. My questions are as follows
-Were she to do that voluntarily, will she be entitled to any kind of SW payments in 2011, if so what kind of payments and are they means tested?
-same questions if her employers were to reduce her hours?
 
The relevant pension is the State Pension (Transition)

Here are some of the relevant rules as quoted by [broken link removed]


To get a State Pension (Transition) you must:
  • Be 65 years of age
  • Be under 66 years of age
  • Be retired from work
  • Have enough social insurance contributions.
Retired

Being retired means that you must not be in insurable employment or self-employment. If you have earnings, they must be less than €38 a week from employment or €3,174 a year from self-employment. If you have an income from savings or investments, you could be liable for self-employed PRSI but you can still get a State Pension (Transition) if you are not actually engaged in self-employment.
This condition ends when you reach the age of 66 and transfer to the State Pension (Contributory).
 
She would be in a better position if her employer reduced the number of days she works. If she was reduced to say, 3 days per week she would be entitled to Jobseekers Benefit for the days she is not working. If she reduced her days voluntarily she may not get JB
The number of hours she works is irrelevant. The number of days worked and the number of days unemployed is the important bit.
She should be then applying for her Contributory Pension around September.

Option 2:- She could retire now and claim her Transition Pension (assuming she has sufficient contributions). Check that out before resigning
 
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