E whakatūturu nei kia whiwhi tautoko te hunga o Aotearoa e hiahiatia ana Ensuring New Zealanders get the support they require

We need to provide New Zealanders with all the services and support they are entitled to, and to ensure that people are confident they will get his support when they need it, including a warm, dry and secure home.

Ngā tau matua The key numbers

At 30 June 2021 354,744 New Zealanders were receiving a main benefit – Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support or Supported Living Payment. This was 0.4 percent higher than at 30 June 2020, but 8.9 percent below the peak of 389,601 reached in January 2021.

In addition, we were paying New Zealand Superannuation to 837,549 people, an increase of 28,548 or 3.5 percent on the previous year, and we received 324,564 applications for Student Loans or Allowances (15,891 or 5.1 percent higher).

In the year ended 30 June 2021, we paid $6.5 billion in main benefit payments, $16.6 billion in New Zealand Superannuation and Veteran’s Pension, and $2.1 billion to students in loans and allowances. The total amount of financial assistance paid through the welfare system, at $31.89 billion, was 18.8 percent lower than in 2019/20, but 32.0 percent higher than in 2018/19, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

There were 29,160 households on the Public Housing Register, compared with 21,879 at June 2020 – an increase of 33.3 percent. We found emergency accommodation for more than 4,000 households for an average of 11.6 weeks each. We made more than 152,500 grants of hardship assistance to get people into, or keep them in, emergency housing, with total investment of $324.5 million – this was an increase of $101.4 million (45.5 percent) on the previous year, and $231.6 million (almost 250 percent) on two years ago.

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