The alternative to aging is death and some people receive benefits because of disability or illness which prevent them from working.
Reducing the benefit burden requires tackling the large number of people who could work and don’t, and not just now when the economy is sluggish.
The government is attempting to address this with the policy Social Welfare Minister Louise Upston announced to reduce the number of young people who go from school to unemployment:
The government is attempting to address this with the policy Social Welfare Minister Louise Upston announced to reduce the number of young people who go from school to unemployment:
. . . “Going on welfare when you’re young is a trap, with recent modelling suggesting that people under the age of 25 on Jobseeker Support will spend an average of 18 or more years on a benefit over their lifetimes.
“Currently 15,045* 18–19-year-olds are on the Jobseeker benefit, and I have far greater hopes and aspirations for those young Kiwis than a life on welfare.
That’s more teenagers who aren’t in education, training or work than the total population of Oamaru .
“Today I can confirm that we are bringing our Budget initiative forward for implementation to November 2026. From then, all young people aged 18 and 19 without dependent children will have to pass a Parental Assistance Test in order to access Jobseeker Support or the equivalent Emergency Benefit.
“This targets welfare assistance to those who need it the most, as young people will be expected to first be supported by their parents,” Louise Upston says. . .
The Taxpayers’ Union spokesman James Ross points out that the parental income cut off should be tapered:
. . . “Breaking the benefit trap is good for young people and good for taxpayers. School leavers who go straight onto a benefit often end up spending decades out of work.”
“A bit of common sense in the welfare system is long overdue. Parents who can support their kids should do so, and those who genuinely can’t should still have the state’s backing.”
“But setting a hard parental income cut off at $65,000 risks creating a perverse incentive, where parents very quickly become much worse off for earning only slightly more. Support should be tapered off gradually, so families aren’t punished for working harder.”
That is a good point as is requiring parents who can support their offspring to do so.
The benefit burden isn’t just the money unemployed are paid. People on benefits are over represented in negative statistics for crime, education and health which comes at a high financial and social cost.
Requiring parents who can look after their children to do so is a good start but it’s not enough. There are too many older people who could work but don’t contributing to the large number of people who pay no net tax.
Getting more people of all ages into work won’t reduce the number of pensioners but it will reduce the benefit burden and result in more people paying more tax which will help make superannuation less unaffordable.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
This entire country could be rescued by eliminating working for families which places a massive proportion of middle NZ on a form of welfare - while contributing to inflation.
No dole for people under 20 (unless they are the outliers who have no family willing to support them - and those unfortunate kids do exist).
No dole if you’re on drugs.
Use some of the savings to establish rehab services!
You are right, Ele.
New Zealand’s real social burden isn’t just superannuation, it’s the long-term benefit dependency that begins early and never ends. But you wouldn’t know it if your view of economics comes via Verity Johnson’s mirror.
Johnson’s Stuff column this week is not journalism — it’s lifestyle theatre disguised as social conscience.
When she writes about trying to live one week on superannuation, She doesn’t discover hardship; she performs it.
She cherry-picks numbers that make her current lifestyle untenable, then generalises it to the whole country.
The real function is emotional reassurance for her readership: “See, even I couldn’t survive — so the system must be broken.”
It’s not malicious, but it’s deeply incurious.
The problem isn’t Super. It’s that she’s budgeting empathy on a Ponsonby salary.
Johnson’s latest “experiment” — trying to live on Super for a week — is sold as social commentary, but plays out more like method acting with spreadsheets. She googles the Super rate, gasps theatrically, then compares it to her $550 rent and $380 grocery bill. Cue the despair. By day one she’s “deflated like a bouncy castle in the jaws of a particularly rambunctious Rottweiler.” It’s entertaining prose, but the arithmetic is self-inflicted.
She’s not testing the pension system; she’s testing whether her own urban lifestyle can survive a fictional retirement. Of course it can’t. It’s the economic equivalent of trying to fit a Tesla charging cable into a 1970s caravan.
And then there’s the maths — or rather, the performance of maths. Johnson writes like someone who’s heard of data, but only in the same way she’s heard of Pilates reformers: she knows they exist, she just doesn’t know how they work.
She solemnly cites “median income” to declare that it’s impossible for an average couple to buy a house without parental help. A small problem: median isn’t mean. The median is a midpoint — half earn more, half earn less — not a national income cap. But Johnson treats it like divine revelation, assuming that if the middle can’t afford a Ponsonby villa, the system must be broken.
That confusion between median and mean runs through her economics. She collapses nuance into narrative: if it’s hard for her, it must be impossible for everyone. No mention that regional medians vary wildly, or that couples can — and do — buy outside the avocado belt.
And then comes the sleight of hand with KiwiSaver. Johnson cites the average balance for 61–65-year-olds as $54,000 — the lowest available figure — ignoring the FMA’s latest data showing it’s closer to $85,000. That’s not a rounding error; it’s creative subtraction. It lets her squeeze an extra sigh of despair out of the reader while quietly shaving off thirty grand of reality.
Her arithmetic is autobiography with a calculator. The “$828 a week” isn’t measured against national averages, household types, or spending data. It’s measured against Verity’s life. Groceries at $380? Rent at $550? It’s not journalism — it’s a cry for help from a lifestyle column.
There’s also that familiar Johnson flourish: the chatty asides, the performative self-deprecation, the props (this time, Arcoroc mugs instead of feather fans). It’s her brand — burlesque for the brunch crowd — where sincerity and satire blur into something that flatters the reader’s moral reflexes.
But it’s worth remembering that Super wasn’t designed to underwrite artisan rent and supermarket sushi. It was meant as a floor, not a lifestyle. Johnson’s discovery that it doesn’t stretch toPonsonby wine nights isn’t social justice — it’s class performance.
I kept hearing as a youngster in the 1970's and 80's about superannuation affordability, so why the surprise now? Start now to slowly increase the age of eligibility, incentivise individual investment via allowing pre-tax investment in Kiwisaver, with tax on withdrawals (when a retiree will have less income and lower tax bracket), and when this finally flows through, start means testing as most people will be self-funded by then and only those truly needing social support will be catered for - but it won't be comfortable for them.
Thankyou @8:37am on your assessment of that vacuous op-ed
I’m a high income earner - and I feed an entire family of 5 on less than $380 a week incl the gluten free tax where we pay $11- $13 for every loaf of bread vs a normal $3 or $4 a loaf for wheat bread.
(Our weekly bread bill is around $70)
My sympathy for verity and people who read her garbage and believe it reflects how they should be living or aspire to her lifestyle but can’t afford it need a kick in the pants.
Nz super is a plan of last resort - unfortunately it’s the only resort many older kiwis have because they weren’t taught how to save and invest from a young age - and in this regard if verity is anything to go by…. Most young kiwis are still failing at developing these basic life skills.
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