{"id":599619,"date":"2026-09-14T01:48:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T01:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/599619\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T01:48:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T01:48:12","slug":"how-much-beneficiaries-are-left-with-after-paying-the-rent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/599619\/","title":{"rendered":"How much beneficiaries are left with after paying the rent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beneficiaries are living on an average of $251 a week once they’ve covered their housing costs, a government report shows.<\/p>\n

A budgeting advisor says her clients are not getting by, and every day someone seeks help with KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals to cover the basics.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Social Development’s total incomes report showed inflation-adjusted average incomes to April last year continued to drop, from $262 in 2024 and $263 in 2023.<\/p>\n

The average spanned from $216 for single people, to $824 for bigger families.<\/p>\n

Overall, incomes after housing costs were higher in 2025 in real terms than they were at the end of 2019, however they have remained “relatively flat” since 2022, the report said.<\/p>\n

Rent or mortgage payments chewed up an average of 48 percent of beneficiaries’ incomes, it showed.<\/p>\n

Before housing costs, beneficiaries’ average income was $486 a week – down from $492 the year prior.<\/p>\n

\"Work<\/p>\n

Work and Income offices<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Rebekah Parsons-King<\/p>\n

A full-time worker on minimum wage who made minimum KiwiSaver contributions would have earned $750.96 each week after tax, during the same period.<\/p>\n

Using KiwiSaver to cover essentials<\/p>\n

Porirua Wh\u0101nau Centre budgeting advisor Christine Tawhara said she had never gone through a beneficiary’s budget and found a surplus.<\/p>\n

RNZ asked how her clients were getting by.<\/p>\n

“They’re not,” she said. “There’s real stress, and their anxiety levels are quite high.”<\/p>\n

Every day her clients sought help with KiwiSaver hardship withdrawals<\/a>, Tawhara said.<\/p>\n

“That’ll give them some money to catch up on debts, catch up on rent, catch up on their power bill, buy a… shopping trolley full of food, but that’s only a temporary fix, it’s almost like a sticking plaster,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I can see them two or three times a year, they come back for a KiwiSaver withdrawal.”<\/p>\n

They also put many essentials like petrol on buy now, pay later schemes like Afterpay to spread costs, Tawhara said.<\/p>\n

Often, given all possible costs had been cut, there was not much the Wh\u0101nau Centre could do, she said.<\/p>\n

“We do the kai box on a Tuesday, but if they’ve run out of kai on, say, Thursday and they’ve got no money, because normally their paydays are Tuesday and Wednesday, there’s just nothing,” she said.<\/p>\n

“My brain’s just ticking over all the time, like, how can I help, how can I help?”<\/p>\n

Tawhara did not believe increasing benefits would help much, given continually rising costs.<\/p>\n

Govt striving for higher quality of life – minister<\/p>\n

Social Development Minister Louise Upston said the Government was focused on growing the economy to boost jobs and incomes.<\/p>\n

\"Bridge\"<\/p>\n

Social Development Minister Louise Upston.<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Mark Papalii<\/p>\n

“Work in paid employment is the best opportunity for people to achieve social and economic well-being,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We accept that the job market is a challenging one, and the welfare system provides assistance for those who have not yet found work.”<\/p>\n

There was more work to do, Upston said.<\/p>\n

“But Government has made good headway despite global headwinds and a challenging fiscal environment that has been influenced by a period of high government spending.”<\/p>\n

The government’s changes to housing supports would reduce the gap between the cost of private and social housing, Upston said.<\/p>\n

The upcoming social housing shake-up<\/a> would increase support for some families and leave others worse off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beneficiaries are living on an average of $251 a week once they’ve covered their housing costs, a government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-599619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}