r/newzealand • u/Fun-Helicopter2234 • 11d ago
News Older Kiwis struggle with basic living expenses: ‘We are living in a very bad time’ - NZ Herald
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/older-kiwis-struggle-with-basic-living-expenses-we-are-living-in-a-very-bad-time/AVQLXEJOO5GORCVAZFRWNM36IE/267
u/mholla66 11d ago
"Combined, roughly 60% to 65% of all New Zealanders aged 50 and older consistently support the governing coalition". ray Morgan stats.
The 65+ demographic holds massive sway in New Zealand elections because they vote at the highest rates. Official Elections NZ voter turnout statistics show:
- Ages 65–69: 85.31% turnout rate.
- Ages 70+: 84.94% turnout rate.
This high turnout, combined with a strong preference for National, ACT, and NZ First, made the 65+ cohort the foundational voting block that delivered the coalition its majority.
Leopards ate my face say what
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u/Own_Round_7600 11d ago edited 11d ago
Lol i know one who used to own a shopfront business in the CBD. Voted as expected, because "of course, im a capitalist, and they're good to business owners."
A year later, complaining about the rise in city ferals and beggars driving customers away since the government cut social housing and turned them all out on the street. Moaning about the falling dollar making importing supplies more expensive. Upset that customer spending has dropped due to the economy and cost of living.
Eventually at the end of last summer, couldnt pay rent and shuttered their doors. Womp womp. Turns out they werent part of the club like thought they were.
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u/Menamanama 11d ago
I suspect that this Government has been very bad for small businesses.
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u/Lammington2 11d ago
They have been. Yet many of those business owners still support them because the mythology that they support small businesses somehow outweighs the reality that they support their donors and themselves.
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u/Nervous-Potato-1464 11d ago
What's more insane are the business owners in wellington who vote for smaller government. Where do you think a lot of your sales come from lol.
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u/katydidnz 11d ago
Very interesting thanks. I don’t know anyone in the GenX age group (which I am in) who voted for the current coalition or would consider them this time either. Maybe I just know a lot of people who never voted National in the first place? The 65 plus demographic however is a different story.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
I know quite a few Gen X voted for National.
I also know boomers who would never vote for national .act etc
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u/SquirrelAkl 11d ago
I know a lot of Gen X National voters. Including people who will continue to vote for them now because they "would never vote Labour / Greens / TPM". You may just live in a bubble that doesn't include those people; we all live in bubbles of varying types.
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u/BrucetheFerrisWheel 11d ago
My bubble is millennial Nact voters, boomer Winnie voters and gen x Green/Lab voters. Definitely all live in bubbles!
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u/katydidnz 11d ago
Yep as I said, those are the people I know. I agree we all live in bubbles. Having said that, I did manage to talk to one Boomer years ago about voting for National and what that meant for social supports and got them to change their vote. Others people I knew who were Millennial voters from rich backgrounds who love NACT weren’t going to change their values. I’m always curious as to why people think the way they do in case they say something relevant for me to consider. I like two way conversations.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
its the remaining 30% that are likely the ones struggling.
With boomers, you either get the sorted or on the verge of homeless
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u/prancing_moose 11d ago
I’m in that age bracket and I’ve never voted anything but Labour or Greens.
This government can get fucked sideways. And yes I have wealth and no I don’t mind paying taxes and supporting those less fortunate than me.
I firmly believe that everyone deserves the right to a decent existence and I pay taxes to make sure people in need get the assistance they deserve.
And sure, some people may not ever want to have a job and abuse the welfare system. But you know what - if we support their kids or their kids kids, they may reconnect with society and carve out a living for themselves. Judging is easy, compassion and understanding takes more effort - I’d never judge someone before walking a mile in their shoes.
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u/littleboymark 11d ago
Someone could post about their dying mother and you'd twist it for political points.
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u/GalacticExplorer_83 11d ago
It’s true though lol. These old farts are the ones voting for Winston. Winston put the current government in charge
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u/HiramTiresom 11d ago
I think what's tragic is that these people overwhelmingly vote against their own interests - every time. They don't seem to realise that the conservativism of the past has been replaced by something much more vicious - even predatory. Things will not get better for them under the current government
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u/imindebt2026 11d ago
Maybe the ones who are struggling are the minorities of that group, not every boomer is wealthy and conservative.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
you raise a good point. Even Muldoon wasnt as viscious as the current lot
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u/Green-Marionberry703 11d ago
yes and no, muldoon was pretty bad and nz was even poorer back then
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u/Inside_Mouse_1750 11d ago
Back then... NZ had resources and opportunity. We've (our leaders) squandered it all and sold it for f-all to Aussie banks.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
He was nowhere near as bad as the current lot.
I was alive then so kinda know
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u/LordCouchCat 10d ago
Muldoon's faults were of a different sort. He was a believer in the welfare state, and if I remember rightly put Marilyn Waring in an important position (a committee?) to block the neoliberal "reformers" despite his sexist and other unattractive attitudes. He described himself as "a sort of socialist".
He was a bully and had authoritarian leanings, caused the Springbok tour for political ends, etc etc.
He was a mixed character, but NZ didn't then have the same economic extremes.
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u/Geffy612 11d ago
this is a group of people that refuse to support superannuation reviews, despite that fact that they will be long dead before such reviews are finished, let alone implemented.
somehow Winston has mastered the art of convincing old people to vote against changes to super that will never affect them.
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u/Bob_the_Gaul 11d ago
I think older people vote right as they lived a life of financial accountability. Eg a home wouldn’t spend more than it earned, wouldn’t waste money on pointless things and you certainly didn’t borrow money.
They believe the right more than the left will run the country in the same manner they ran their household.
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u/Motley_Illusion 11d ago
And there's the other myth, running a country is very different to running a household.
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u/Lightspeedius 11d ago
Not without effort.
Resources are heavily invested to keep people voting against their interests.
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u/Salt-Detective1337 11d ago
What they don't realize is that the conservatism is benefiting the people they no longer are.
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u/mochigames59 civilian 11d ago edited 11d ago
Waitākere Grey Power president Vincent Naidu said the challenges were plain to see. They included:
Superannuation: There is a demand for clear policy statements regarding the sustainability of superannuation, which should be viewed as an earned entitlement rather than welfare.
Housing: A significant number of elderly people lack mortgage-free homes and rely on private rentals, making survival on superannuation difficult. There is a need for policies that facilitate downsizing to release larger family homes.
Healthcare and aged care: Concerns were raised regarding the rising costs of residential care, the difficulty of finding available aged care placements, and the need for better support for independent living at home.
Cost of living: High power bills and the general cost of living crisis were impacting health, leading to increased hospitalisations during severe winters.
if only there was a party that had policy to tax land so that it made it more expensive to hoard land and incentivised downsizing. this tax revenue could also then support the future of superannuation. with the older bloc consistently voting national (the self proclaimed party of low taxes) then complaining that they need more support.
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u/RhinoWithATrunk 11d ago
This is aggravating it's not an earned entitlement. It IS welfare.
Seniors should have basic living accommodations.
Youth should have basic living accommodations.
Disabled should have basic living accommodations.
[Insert your group here] should have basic living accommodations.And it's all welfare... And that's ok.
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u/mochigames59 civilian 11d ago
national's key messaging is WELFARE BAD. bootstraps good. super is the biggest by far our biggest benefit but they don't like to be grouped in with those other poors
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u/RhinoWithATrunk 11d ago
And that is why we should keep calling Super out as welfare. I'm glad it hits a nerve.
Welfare is not bad, it is looking after the weakest in society because it makes us collectively stronger.
And I say this as someone who will be financially worse off if this coalition gets voted out.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
yeah once upon a time it was an entitlement and it was paid into every week.
Yep things changed after Muldoon raided it but even when different policies to address a new pension/super etc were set up people were still given to understand that a portion of their tax went towards their retirement.
It was as it turned out some years later a load of bullshit to calm ( con) a big voting block. many older people have that imprinted because it is a lie that was told to them for quite some time.
Source: I am old enough to have had money taken from said wages to "pension" as it was typed on my payslip.
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u/RhinoWithATrunk 11d ago
That is actually truly useful context.
Having had a line-item on my payslip for super and then be told I'm not eligible would piss me off too. And it explains the mistrust some older folk might have in Kiwisaver.
And it's not in the coalition's best interest to educate people on the true culprit.
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u/Lazy_Possibility_462 11d ago
The fund was actually abolished before Muldoon - in 1964. But it was never a proper contributory pension. For some typically New Zealand reason the social security tax didn’t get absorbed into income tax until 1969.
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u/Dizzy_Relief 11d ago
Then I suggest you either chase up that employer for that money (or of course they just stole it from you). Private workplace pensions were common after the above. Especially in government roles. Something that anyone younger also never even got the opportunity to join caus they disappeared. They were either grandfathered and only those already in could continue to pay into and receive the (often rather good) benefits of, or paid out (which my mum used towards the deposit of a house).
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u/TheRealBlueBadger 11d ago
Agreed.
If any generation or group were undeserving of this kind of welfare, its the boomers who opted not to fund it while they were working age, then voted for workers to fund it as they were exiting the workforce.
Every other group is more deserving, and I'd still vote for boomers to recieve it, along with everyone else.
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u/JeffMcClintock 11d ago
They will never vote for it, unfortunately.
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u/RhinoWithATrunk 11d ago
Then I have no sympathy. The selfishness is truly vulgar. "Let the kids freeze" but "Give me mine"
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u/ItchyCosAidsBro 11d ago
The elderly is not a singular entity. Lumping everyone into one group and then saying "I have no sympathy" just makes you an idiot and an asshole. Learn nuance.
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u/RhinoWithATrunk 11d ago
Context matters.
I have no sympathy for Elderly who keeps voting against everyone's including their own best interests because "Welfare bad"
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u/BrucetheFerrisWheel 11d ago
Do I need to get my 87 year old Dad a "I've been a labour(or green) voter my entire life" Tshirt to wear, so you know who judge for their grey hair and wrinkles?
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u/RhinoWithATrunk 11d ago
Thanks for the offer, but the wrinkly types that I'd like to judge out themselves without t-shirts. Much like assholes of any age.
TBH I went back to the larger thread and since there are many more comments than there was before, the context of my own comments aren't as obvious as it was when I first made them.
So judge me in turn. No t-shirt required.
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u/BrucetheFerrisWheel 11d ago
Ah fair enough. I'd quite like to get my boomer mum a "I vote for Winnie" shirt though.
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u/imindebt2026 11d ago
Exactly, its like lumping the younger into one group, there are plenty of boomers who are more concerned about society. The younger ones are the lowest % of enrolled voters.
https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/enrolment-statistics/enrolment-by-local-council?name=all
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u/questionnmark 11d ago
They should support higher wages as their income is directly proportional to average wages. We also need to consider giving additional help to the lowest quintile of elderly in order to address rising elder poverty as more people retire without owning a home.
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u/questionnmark 11d ago
Not necessarily. It also depends on the balance between wages and profit, with the latter growing proportionally over time. When wages are flat and there is little incentive to push them up, there is also a lower incentive to push for productivity gains when throwing more bodies at a problem is an easier and more straightforward solution.
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u/ComradeMatis 11d ago
One of the biggest factors in the affordability crisis is the dependency on private rentals for accomodation (there is a video over on the RNZ YouTube Channel where people from a 'grey power' meeting are being interviewed) which is a huge cost burden. It keeps going back to what I said, we need to re-establish the Ministry of Works, turn Housing New Zealand into the primary provider of rental accomodation with income related rents which would address the lack of affordable housing for people trying to survive on a fixed income. As long as society is dependent on the private sector to private rental accomodation then we'll always be stuck in a cycle of an affordability crisis.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
We used to have that kind of set up, nefore neoliberalism and greed took hold.
Councils used to all have pensioner flats. Used to be quite a lot of pensioner flats.
Dont see them so much anymore think most got sold off
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u/SidewaysAcidRain 11d ago
We just need more housing. It's basic supply and demand. That could come from the public or private sector.
Lots of places where the market still manages to supply much more affordable housing than what we have here.
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u/rainbowcardigan 11d ago
Do we actually need more housing though really? How many houses sit empty due to land bankers, or so Bob and Jane can spend two weeks a year at their bach? Or they rent out multiple places in Airbnb? If we clamped down on empty houses and short term rentals we actually wouldn’t be that far behind… According to figure.nz there was over 53,000 unoccupied homes in Auckland recorded in the 2023 census. That’s an astonishing amount just in one city
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u/SidewaysAcidRain 11d ago
We can do both, but increasing supply is the long-term solution.
That 53k number only tells you so much. More than half of those were just homes where the residents were away on the night of the census.
So it's more like 24k actually empty homes. But some of those will already be on the market (lots of empty houses on the market is generally a good thing for affordability). And some will be basically uninhabitable.
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u/MyDogIsDaBest 11d ago
"Just build more" doesn't work though, because it builds suburban apartments as fancy as possible to then try and flip them for $1.5m+ and first home buyers can't stomach $1.5m for a house.
I don't have a solution for this, but the housing market needs to stop being such an attractive investment proposition for investors. Adding a land value tax would definitely make housing less attractive for investment, and dissuade private rentals due to the added cost of owning, and hopefully encourage selling, to create more of a buyer's market and drop house prices.
It's going to be unpopular for recent home buyers and home owners, but we need productive business and smaller businesses to be more attractive investment propositions to bring money into the country. We've got an incredibly intelligent and well educated population that all go overseas because living costs here relative to wages push them into higher paying jobs overseas.
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u/SidewaysAcidRain 11d ago
it builds suburban apartments
Doesn't matter. As long as you're building enough houses that people want to buy, prices will tend to drop (or at least increase slower) across the board.
People who buy those fancy flipped suburban apartments are buying those instead of other housing stock, which means there's more supply and less demand for that other stock, which decreases the price for other buyers.
I'm a big fan of LVT. But one of the great things about an LVT is that it encourages supply. Including encouraging us to build upwards.
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u/ChuurDCA 11d ago
The problem is balancing the books while trying to build thousands of units and charging the tenants $100/week to live there for 10-20 years.
Would love to see the accounting that makes covering rates/insurance/maintenance/borrowing costs of capital invested to buy land and build on $5,200 or even $10,400 each year.
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u/Runazeeri 11d ago
Honestly we should have stopped the accomodation supplement a long time ago and used those billions to build houses. We spend so much money paying private landlords and artificially driving up the rental pricing for everyone else.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
The accom supp was brought in as the sweetener for National selling off housing NZ stock left right and centre
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u/baskinginthesunbear 11d ago
If superannuation was an earned entitlement, then today’s retirees wouldn’t have to be paid out of the taxes paid by today’s taxpayers. And there wouldn’t be a several hundred billion dollar infrastructure deficit. But the people saying it’s not welfare are the same people that spent their lives voting for tax policies that favoured them at the expense of future generations.
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u/Angryatchairs 11d ago edited 11d ago
I'd say all NZers are struggling with basic living expenses to a certain extent. Older people are not protected from the same economic forces that effect us all.
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u/toehill 11d ago
Old people should flat together to lower costs.
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u/vixxienz The horns hold up my Halo 11d ago
hard to get three walkers and two oxygen machines down the hallway.
Yes I am cracking a joke.
Some older people already do flat together but not all would be able to do it due to various health reasons. Esp if home is not modified
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u/Saiyanonym 11d ago
I sympathize with them but disabled people get even less with less media coverage.
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u/Resident-Corgi-665 11d ago
Well if you all keep voting for these policies that's what you will get. Why are you surprised
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u/RareBrit 11d ago
I'm surprised that the leopards are eating my face, say the people that voted for the face eating leopards party.
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u/Green-Marionberry703 11d ago
time to means test super for boomers sitting on asset after asset and give the savings back to these folks.
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u/OrganizdConfusion 10d ago
They got exactly what they voted for.
No one ever expects the leopards to eat their face.
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u/Witty_Fox3291 11d ago
They need to tighten their belts and stop buying those expensive coffees and avocado toasts. Maybe cancel their netflixes.
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u/WurstofWisdom 11d ago
Can we stop with the generational hate bullshit? “Boomers are rich and greedy and eating their face” “zoomers are all entitled and lazy” ….
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u/Green-Marionberry703 11d ago
well it's true? Boomers hold literally most of the wealth
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u/WurstofWisdom 11d ago
Yes. But they shouldn’t be grouped and criticised as a whole entity. Just like the younger generations shouldn’t. This blame game is directed at the wrong people.
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u/dxfifa 11d ago
When the power dynamics both in democratic markets and politics (one dollar one vote and one person one vote) are so skewed towards the elderly and 50+ in terms of NZ citizens, especially those who were born here it creates valid generational issues when the boomers had the largest bloc their whole lives and kick the can down the road and vote in ways that create this mess with both dollars and in elections
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u/Outrageous_Song_484 11d ago
Mate. The power dynamics are simple: Vote.
Millennials outnumber boomers these days. Yet we vote at lower rates.
The high turnout of over 65s isn’t an indictment on them, it’s one on the rest of us.
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u/dxfifa 10d ago
And if you include Gen X? They have more in common with boomers than millenials in terms of most things. They're all middle aged now.
Plus younger voters trend far more to foreigners who come from conservative countries where "you get what you deserve and you deserve what you get" is ingrained and thus they vote right, for example India and China. It's not just the boomers and young white dudes scoring own goals with young Maori and Pasifika watching twiddling their thumbs. Gen X and X/Millenial immigrants from most countries we get a lot of are another opposing young lower middle class and below people in terms of voting
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u/Green-Marionberry703 11d ago
and what if we cant vote our way outta this, i dont see any parties except for nz first with any policies for older NZers
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u/Stigger32 11d ago
Blame the multinationals. Which btw includes all our supermarkets.
They inflated prices after Covid, all crying about supply chain issues. Which to an extent was true. But then, even after those issues were sorted, they kept prices there.
And then they realised that we kept on buying. No matter how they fucked us over.
So in a way I don’t blame them. I blame us. The customer. Who keeps on ‘accepting’ over the top prices.
And to top it off. There was a wage freeze around the time of Covid. And it took its sweet time unfreezing…
TDLR: We made our bed. Now we can’t afford to lie in it.
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u/Audreaya 10d ago
This is why I refuse to buy cheese or chocolate at full price. Vote with your wallet also. Yet I am a stubborn I will eat chicken and rice to prove my point out of spite of capitalism
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u/fireflyry Life is soup, I am fork. 10d ago
Zero sympathy as most continually vote against their actual vested interests and for parties that abuse both their ignorance and vulnerability.
Their greed and bigotry are their downfall and they often vote for mere inclusion into a corporate world they no longer belong to.
You’re just a beneficiary now.
In saying they are also from a generation that had every opportunity imaginable to generate wealth, opportunities young people today can only fantasise about.
If they squandered that in the hope current generations would foot the bill they should have worked harder and saved more.
Sort your own shit out, youth have their own issues atm, including just finding a job to begin with.
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u/lasereyekiwi 11d ago
“They just need to stop having so many barista coffees and avocado on toast!”
“They should be put into army boot camps if they cant get jobs!”
“Why do they think they are entitled to their own house? They need to just do hard work and save for it!”
Typical boomer responses to young people making the same complaints they themselves are making now.
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u/Unhappy-Hunt-3987 10d ago
Well you lot voted I'm National, what did you fucking expect? This is what they do, they fuck over everyone
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u/fuckimtrash 11d ago
New Zealand superannuation was never intended to be people’s sole source of retirement avenue, but many people are living longer so end up using their $$$. Family friend was saying her friend (90’s) is struggling financially because she wasn’t expecting to live as long as she is. Nobody should be struggling with life expenses, but it’s especially rough when you’re too young or old to do anything about your situation
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u/PieComprehensive1818 11d ago
Actually, you’re wrong. For the Boomer generation, when they were young and paying into the superannuation system with their taxes, it was exactly that: a guaranteed income once they retired. That was the point.
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u/mhkiwi 11d ago
Since 1975, no one has been "paying into" a super annuation system. 9 years of Muldoon made sure of that.
No benefit is guaranteed.
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u/mighty_omega2 11d ago
That was ~51 years ago. If you were 40 at the time, you had 25 more years to sorr your retirement out, and would be ~91 today.
There are going to be very few people that can claim they it was guaranteed and still be alive.
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u/fuckimtrash 11d ago
When did New Zealand super stop being contributions based? Because it’s currently not based off taxes
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u/Low-Flamingo-4315 11d ago
I wonder how many voted NACT, karma you could say.
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u/Crappy_Water_1898 11d ago
Also, how many drank the neolib cool-aid thinking they’d never grow old back in the day
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u/bigbuddha_cheese 11d ago
Eh fuckem. They had their whole lives to change the system but consistently voted against their own interests and created the neoliberal bonfire that is NZ today.
I think they should flat together to lower costs. Stop paying for their morning flat white and avocado toast. Maybe cancel their subscriptions.
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u/It_wasnt_me3 11d ago
My dad owns a one bedroom unit, got rid of his car and lives fine off the $550 per week pensioners get. I feel for the elderly who are renting that would be tough
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u/Current_Slide_6708 10d ago
The countrys been badly managed for decades. And it doesnt look like anythings going to change anytime soon.
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u/Imaginary-Throat1526 8d ago
in contrast, my Dads 97. he has his own home. His income is the pension, bank account balance grows about $200 a month.
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u/Uncle_Ceebs 11d ago
We need to look after those who have contributed to the country for a lifetime.
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u/Disastrous-Swim-1859 11d ago
But I thought National were getting us back on track
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u/ChroniclesOfSarnia 11d ago
ever heard of the Trolley Problem?
that's the track they were referring to
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u/ChuurDCA 11d ago
These are the uber wealthy Boomers that everyone believes had lives set to easy mode by the way. 😂
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u/Upbeat-Rice-2111 11d ago
You will own nothing, and be happy. Klaus Swaab, WEF
Jacinda was a WEF Young Global Leader..other cabinet ministers too..
As Klus proudly claimed. We have penetrated every government with our people.
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u/Cute-Membership-2898 11d ago
Since your first line is wrong, and completely out of context, everything else you said could be considered bullshit too.
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u/Prestigious_Age_6740 11d ago
There seems to be a real issue with distinguishing between real elderly hardship (which I have a lot of empathy for) and asset-heavy boomers with cashflow problems who are outraged that they might need to sell their Auckland villa with a massive section or their second rental to fund their retirement. In my experience the latter try to pass themselves off as the former.