{"id":626001,"date":"2026-10-10T02:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T02:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626001\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T02:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T02:46:08","slug":"new-zealand-first-pledges-to-increase-minimum-wage-by-at-least-inflation-levels-if-in-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/626001\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand First pledges to increase minimum wage by at least inflation levels if in government"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand First has pledged to increase the minimum wage by at least inflation levels every year for the next three years, should it re-enter government.<\/p>\n

It is also promising a permanent boost to the Working for Families in-work tax credit.<\/p>\n

Over the last term of government, the minimum wage increased each year<\/a>, with the most recent increase below the rate of inflation.<\/p>\n

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said workers needed to have the ability to afford the basics without falling behind the rate of inflation.<\/p>\n

“As a government we cannot just view the economic recovery from a national level, it needs to start with our workers who are the backbone of our communities.”<\/p>\n

Peters has made the announcement at a public meeting in Invercargill.<\/p>\n

Alongside the minimum wage announcement, Peters said New Zealand First would make permanent the temporary boost to the in-work tax credit introduced earlier this year to help families affected by the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n

The $50 a week boost is set to expire in April, or if the price of 91 octane petrol drops below $3 a litre for four consecutive weeks.<\/p>\n

Peters said New Zealand First would also increase it by an extra $70 a week, making the total $120 a week. The party estimated it would cost between $500 million to $600m a year.<\/p>\n

ACT had campaigned on a minimum wage freeze, but New Zealand First had secured increases as part of the coalition agreement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand First has pledged to increase the minimum wage by at least inflation levels every year for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-626001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626001","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=626001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}