NZ Super is a national treasure, but at what cost?
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Martin Hawes is a financial writer and presenter, and has written 25 personal finance books. He writes a weekly column.
OPINION: New Zealand can afford NZ Super in the same sense as people earning average income could perhaps afford a brand-new car every year. Average earners may be able to find the money for the car somehow, but paying for the car would come at huge cost to the other things that they may want to do in terms of lost lifestyle.
It is much the same issue with NZ Super – we can continue to meet the price, but the cost is steep in that other things will struggle or fail (schools, universities, health, defence, climate change adaptation).
Moreover, a retiree at age 65 today is usually in a quite different position than one 30 years ago. Many people do not simply stop work and stay stopped at age 65 – they often carry on working in some form for years
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To better reflect the reality of the way people approach retirement today, and to free up some money for health, education etc, it’s time to talk about the NZ Super age of eligibility.
It has been a generation since the age of eligibility was raised and many things are now quite different. We are healthier, we live longer, we do less manual work and we work longer. New Zealand retirement is very different now from when the eligibility for NZ Super was set at 65.
A later age for being eligible for NZ Super would accept the current situation for many people at retirement age.
NZ Super is a national treasure. NZ Super is a scheme that is widely admired around the world because it delivers a a bedrock for retirement simply and at a relatively low price. It is something that should be changed only rarely – people need certainty and confidence in retirement income.
As a society, we can probably continue to scrape up the money for NZ Super – I am not so worried about that. Instead my concern is the cost - there are so many other areas of government spending which require funds.
To get more money to where it is needed we could slowly increase the age of eligibility. This move would consider and reflect the current situation of people over 65: today, nearly half of those in the 65 to 69 cohort are in some kind of work (although many work part-time). This figure for older people in work has been growing for decades and will surely continue to grow.
As to what age that eligibility should be increased to, you may remember that the National Party had a policy to raise it to 67. Others have suggested a rise to 70 and beyond.
I suspect we need more evidence to make the right call on age, and more research will be needed to show the amount of money that could go to other government spending. Most experts expect that it would be a significant amount.
I have heard many people say that raising the age for NZ Super would be difficult, that there are many people who cannot continue to work past age 65. In fact, they should remember that we have increased the entitlement age previously.
From 1992, eligibility was increased from 60 to 65 over a 10-year period. I do not recall any great political difficulty nor widespread protest at the time – in fact, the major political parties signed a superannuation accord in 1993 which agreed several superannuation issues including confirmation of increasing the age.
Crucially, a transitional retirement benefit was introduced as part of the accord. This benefit targeted people who were affected by the age increase and who would struggle to continue to work. The benefit was legislated for 10 years, and the act was automatically repealed in 2004.
Any increase in the age of eligibility today would need a similar benefit– an age increase would be difficult for significant numbers of people who could not continue in work, and they would need financial help.
Raising the age of NZ Super would be no silver bullet; we would still need to increase productivity and save more. However, New Zealand needs more cash for a host of other things.
We also need to have confidence NZ Super will continue to exist– it needs to be on a firm footing and not something we continually squabble about.
In fact, I think a once-in-a-generation tweak to the age of eligibility could make the treasure that is NZ Super even more likely to survive in the long term.
Martin Hawes is not a financial adviser and the information and opinions here should not be taken as financial advice.