People in certain circumstances, such as caring for a severely disabled person for more than 20 hours a week or claiming unemployment or sickness benefits, gain National Insurance credits.
32.
The job actions were timed to coincide with a new law, which took effect on Tuesday, that enables German companies to slash sickness benefits from full pay to 80 percent.
33.
Substantial increases were made in social security benefits such as injury and sickness benefits, unemployment benefits, housing allowances, basic subsistence aid allowances, and family allowances and living allowances.
34.
This involved " equality of sacrifice, " whereby unemployment insurance was restored in full, and the so-called no benefit days for those drawing sickness benefits were cancelled.
35.
The main reason for this change in trajectory was demographic : in particular, World War Two'baby boomers'on sickness benefits had begun to draw their State Pension instead.
36.
But the government did not back down, saying it would rather marginally reduce the employees social security burden than resume paying sickness benefits from the first day of a person's illness.
37.
It is possible to integrate more statuses into this type of model, and so it can be used also to model other types of benefits ( unemployment, child, sickness benefits ).
38.
Then Minister for Social Development and Employment David Benson-Pope later stated that, when implemented, the reforms will move between 3, 000 and 6, 000 people off the Sickness Benefit.
39.
If out-of-work sickness benefits costs were combined with those of the other disability benefits-the bulk of which go to the elderly-the total would be around ?3 billion.
40.
A law to improve the system of sickness benefits provided that those insured would receive compensation when obliged to stay at home to care for a sick child and thereby incurring a loss of income.
