LINDSAY MITCHELL: Who Moves from Welfare to Super?
- Administrator
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
The National government is presiding over significant growth in benefit dependency, in both numbers and the length of duration people remain dependent. When they took office in late November 2023 there were 369,000 work-age people on benefits. By the end of September 2025, that number had grown to 410,328 - or by just over eleven percent.
Given New Zealand's rapidly ageing population, I wondered how much the apparent growth is being suppressed by people moving off a benefit and onto Super. So I asked for data from MSD under the Official Information Act.
Through 2024 and during the first half of 2025 (constituting a good chunk of the current government's tenure) 14,952 people transferred from a working-age benefit to Super.
Over the same period, total working-age beneficiaries rose from to 378,711 to 406,128 or 7.2%.
Without the departure of 65 year-old transferees, the increase would have been 11.2%
The answer then to my question is percentage-wise, the growth is being suppressed quite substantially. Of course, this has always been the case. But it is important to grasp that a minus from the working-age ledger doesn't necessarily equate to someone becoming employed and self-sufficient.
I also asked for a breakdown of which benefits the transferees were coming off.
Unsurprisingly a large number have come from the Supported Living Payment (formerly Invalid Benefit). In 2024, 49 percent of people who transferred onto super came from this benefit; 43 percent moved from a Jobseeker benefit; 7 percent had been on an Emergency Benefit and 36 people had been on Sole Parent Support.
Working backwards, given that a sole parent can only qualify while their youngest child is under fourteen, the sole parents are likely to be custodial fathers. But an older female sole parent might have a whangai youngster.
The Emergency Benefit is for those people who do not qualify for a main benefit often because they do not have residency or citizenship. Non-quota refugees and asylum seekers for instance. So how would they qualify for Super? Well, it may be that by the time they eventually achieve either status, they are older than 64.
The 43 percent on Jobseeker is elevated compared to eight years ago reflecting a higher unemployment rate. There are elevated numbers on Jobseeker at all ages.
As for the Supported Living Payment, incapacitating illnesses and injuries obviously grow more common with age. Consider too that ACC's recent performance has been less than stellar, and the health system leaves much to be desired.
But there is a further factor in play. Being unemployed long term can lead to becoming unemployable. More than a third of Supported Living Payment recipients have a psychiatric or psychological condition (including substance abuse). There is research evidence that people migrate from the dole to sickness to invalidity ... and then naturally to Super. We are probably still seeing people coming through who haven't worked since the 1990s deep recession.
The raw stats don't tell us to what degree but being on welfare at the age of 64 often indicates significant long-term reliance.
Welfare is like an iceberg. The visible tip gets all the attention - the young and unemployed.
But below the surface is a very large group of people for whom welfare is a way of life - whether they chose it or not.
It is endemic but it's also just part of the Kiwi wallpaper. It will remain so without major reforms.
Right now, sadly, the stats are all heading in the wrong direction and it is hard to see what will shrink the iceberg.
Lindsay Mitchell blogs here
As left wing governments prefer citizens to be reliant on government assistance they will not do anything to resolve the problems they initiated, and don't expect damn all to come out of Nationals thumbsucking. However, may I offer some resolutions. 1. Stop all non essential immigration immediately and stop family attachments. 2. Stop all inessential government spending, including taxpayer funding of media. 3. Cut GST TO 10%. And the most important of all, get advice on how to fix the economy from the wealth creators, the exporters, farmers and manufacturers - not bankers. In most instances government paid advisors don't have the necessary experience to advise.
Thank you Lindsay for yet another well researched analysis of what ails/inhibits our country and sucks its future and its financial resources dry.
How namby pamby and incompetent both past and present governments have been in creating, installing, managing and monitoring the essential checks, balances, accountabilities and responsibilities for the money allocated to the burgeoning 410,328 recipients. The taxpayer has worked long and hard to earn their incomes, no beneficiary should expect to be given a benefit without undertaking unpaid 'public good work' in return.
No-one is owed a living at another's expense; symbiosis exists in the natural world, not entitlement. At the very least those who have left school illiterate/innumerate or without NCEA, intending to go on a yout…
How depressing..the utter lack of personal motivation to do something for yourself..
Singapore has an answer, no work history, no benefit, and then its only paid on a pro rata basis, work all your life and collect all the pensions etc. You must work at least 12 months to be able to collect anything. What children are now taught at school has a lot to answer for, the idea that everyone is a winner is dishonest in the extreme.
Lindsay the situation is dire and well known. What is lacking from all parties is a solution.
The preferred approach from many here and on other blogs is slash and burn but you would be as aware as our pollies are that such a solution is both politically and socially unacceptable.
I personally believe a radical rethink of our education system is one of the keys but it is a medium/long term solution but until we have a population both capable and willing to enter the work force with ambition to better their's and their family's lives we are doomed to continue the cycle.