NZ as a basic income. The time has come
Can we spend some of the budget transfer dollar better? Time to take the cream off the top of NZ Super and redistribute to fix poverty, working for families, accommodation supplement and other social deficits. The older population has a key reason to support the young: they are dependent on a healthy well fed and educated workforce.
Just published today: St John, S (2025) New Zealand Superannuation as a basic income. PIE working paper 2025-1: March 5th 2025: The modelling illustrates that significant savings maybe achieved from a suitably progressive separate tax schedule for those who opt onto the basic income, called here the New Zealand Superannuation Grant (NZSG). Alignment of the various rates of NZS may generate additional saving.
I love your work Susan. I think it is very constructive at this moment when the Labour Party is considering its tax policy. It is imperative that the tax system is reformed and simplified in a radical way consistent with equitable outcomes. To avoid increasing misery in our less well off population we in a better situation should be contributing more. I am deeply suspicious of the motives and ethics of most of our politicians and support providing them with the evidence and information they will find hard to ignore. “Nil carborundum” = don’t let the buggers wear you down!
I see a great deal of merit in your proposal Susan. I have long believed that the NZ Superannuation going to those of us who have significant other income would be better put to other pressing needs in our society, and I too have seen major disadvantages with raising the age of eligibility or instituting means testing as ways of reducing the fiscal cost. Using the tax system to claw back NZ superannuation from those who do not need it always seemed to me to be the least complicated and most sensible approach. Your proposal does that and has the added advantage of setting up a universal basic income, something that, as you say, is an appropriate response to the employment uncertainties of the present and likely future.