{"id":95774,"date":"2025-08-25T23:22:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T23:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95774\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T23:22:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T23:22:13","slug":"retirement-savings-gap-emerging-between-self-employed-and-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95774\/","title":{"rendered":"Retirement savings gap emerging between self-employed and employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWithout meaningful reform, we risk seeing hundreds of thousands of people reach retirement without sufficient financial security.\u201d<\/p>\n

This could leave more retirees relying heavily on Government transfers \u2013 such as NZ Super and other benefits \u2013 as well as other public support, Wrightson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s inaction could become tomorrow\u2019s fiscal burden.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RetirementRetirement Commissioner Jane Wrightson. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

According to the 2023 Census, New Zealand has more than 420,000 self-employed individuals.<\/p>\n

However, recent changes to KiwiSaver announced in this year\u2019s Budget<\/a> could further diminish retirement savings for self-employed.<\/p>\n

From July 1, the Government\u2019s contribution was reduced from 50c for every $1 to 25 cents for every $1 contributed up to $260.72.<\/p>\n

The report said the policy change will reduce the retirement savings of self-employed KiwiSaver members, as they face the reduction in the Government contribution with no increase in employer contributions to offset this.<\/p>\n

Hnry\u2019s Sole Trader Pulse survey, commissioned two weeks after the Budget, found 24% of sole traders said they would reduce their KiwiSaver contributions because of Budget 2025 policy changes.<\/p>\n

A further 6% said they would stop contributing to KiwiSaver altogether.<\/p>\n

James Fuller, Hnry chief executive, said retirement savings must work for all New Zealanders, regardless of how they earn their income.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we have a two-tier system that favours employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cSole traders face a very real risk of poverty in retirement unless there is a cross-party consensus and policies that help them save more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope these findings finally lead the Government and Parliament to take this issue seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report outlined policy options to improve outcomes for the self-employed based on initiatives already in place in other OECD nations, including:<\/p>\n

Flexible percentage-of-income contributions; Enhanced incentives for low-income contributors; Innovative savings products such as linked emergency and retirement accounts.<\/p>\n

Cameron Smith is an Auckland-based business reporter. He joined the Herald in 2015 and has covered business and sports. He reports on topics such as retail, small business, the workplace and macroeconomics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWithout meaningful reform, we risk seeing hundreds of thousands of people reach retirement without sufficient financial security.\u201d This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[617,64,63,15127,99,70559,70557,7593,186,44524,19818,184,185,1793,1781,70558],"class_list":["post-95774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-and","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-between","tag-business","tag-concerning","tag-emerging","tag-employees","tag-finance","tag-gap","tag-individuals","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-retirement","tag-savings","tag-selfemployed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}