Новозеландцы досрочно сняли с накопительных счетов 260 млн долларов: бедность обгоняет покупку жилья

New Zealanders pulled $260.1 million out of their KiwiSaver accounts in July, decades before most of them will reach retirement. More of them did it because they were in financial trouble than because they were buying a first home. Figures published by Inland Revenue on Monday show 9,770 members made an early withdrawal during the month. Of those, 4,660 took money out to buy a first home. The other 5,110 took money out under the significant financial hardship rules, which allow people to reach into their retirement savings when they cannot meet minimum living costs. Hardship applicants also outnumbered first home buyers in July last year, and across the most recent full financial year, so this is a settled pattern rather than a one month wobble. The dollars run the other way. First home buyers took out $214.9 million and hardship applicants took out $45.2 million, according to Inland Revenue’s figures on the amount withdrawn and its count of the number of withdrawals. That works out at an average of roughly $46,100 for a first home withdrawal and roughly $8,800 for a hardship withdrawal, a gap of more than five to one. One group is assembling a house deposit. The other is covering rent, power and groceries for a few weeks. Both categories grew over the year. Compared with July 2025, the number of first home withdrawals was up about 5 per cent and their value was up 12.2 per cent from $191.6 million. Hardship withdrawals rose 3.2 per cent by number and 4.6 per cent by value from $43.2 million. The average first home withdrawal grew close to 7 per cent while the average hardship payment barely shifted, moving about 1 per cent. That fits the shape of the two rules. Deposits climb with house prices, while a hardship payment is capped at what an applicant needs to get through roughly the next three months. Across the whole month the country was taking about $8.4 million a day out of its retirement savings. Inland Revenue cautions that the figures come from scheme providers and may not capture every withdrawal, and that they exclude retirement withdrawals entirely, so the true flow out of KiwiSaver is larger again. The longer trend is the sharper one. Inland Revenue’s annual data shows that in the year to June 2025, 45,870 members made a hardship withdrawal while 43,600 made a first home withdrawal. A decade earlier, in the 2015 financial year, 8,250 members withdrew for hardship and 16,180 withdrew for a first home. Hardship cases have risen more than fivefold in ten years while first home cases have not quite tripled. In dollar terms hardship withdrawals went from $41.1 million to $471.2 million over the same stretch, an elevenfold increase, and the two categories together now account for $2.3 billion a year against $298.9 million in 2015. The pattern has been flagged at the top. Reporting on hardship withdrawals in November 2025, RNZ quoted the Retirement Commissioner at the time, Jane Wrightson, who had raised the issue in her three-yearly review of retirement income policy. “In some cases, the funds do not resolve the underlying financial problem, and hardship continues,” Wrightson said. “Repeat withdrawals are becoming more common, with many members returning for additional funds after the initial 13-week relief period, sometimes depleting their entire balance.” Ana-Marie Lockyer, chief executive of Pie Funds, told the same outlet that about 30 per cent of hardship withdrawals clean out the account completely. “This typically occurs when their assessed needs – such as 13 weeks of living expenses or essential one-off costs like a car needed to get to work – exceed the total balance in their account,” she said. The backdrop is a labour market that has kept loosening. Stats NZ put the unemployment rate at 5.6 per cent in the June 2026 quarter, up from 5.4 per cent in March and the highest since 2015. Retail spending has been soft, and household budgets have been absorbing higher fuel and grocery costs. Hardship withdrawals are one of the few places where that pressure shows up as a single, countable number rather than a survey response. The scheme itself is being asked to carry more weight at the same time. From 1 April 2026 the default employee and employer contribution rate rose from 3 per cent to 3.5 per cent, with a further step to 4 per cent scheduled for April 2028, and 16 and 17 year olds now qualify for employer contributions. Working the other way, the annual government contribution was halved from 1 July 2025 to 25 cents for every dollar saved, with a maximum of $260.72 a year, and people earning more than $180,000 no longer qualify at all. Inland Revenue sets all of this out on its KiwiSaver changes page. So the same fund is now expected to do three jobs at once. It is meant to build a retirement balance, supply the deposit for a first house, and act as an emergency buffer when the money runs out. Every dollar that leaves early takes its future compounding with it, which is why the withdrawal figures matter well beyond the month they are reported in. If you are trying to work out what your own balance is likely to do over the next few decades, our guide on how to grow your KiwiSaver walks through the levers that actually move it. Explore the data. See how house prices and the years of household income it takes to buy have moved across 18 New Zealand cities since 2001 in our interactive house price tool. The first home numbers carry their own message about affordability. An average withdrawal of $46,100 is a large slice of a deposit, and it is money that would otherwise have sat in the market for another 30 or 40 years. That trade is the deal KiwiSaver has offered first home buyers for years, and rising average withdrawals suggest deposits are getting harder to assemble from ordinary saving alone. July’s release also landed alongside other signs of a cautious economy. Interest.co.nz, which tracks the monthly release, noted the figures sit below the March 2026 peak but remain well above where they were a couple of years ago. Next month’s data will show whether the winter run of hardship applications eases as the labour market settles or keeps grinding higher. Have you dipped into your KiwiSaver, either for a first home or because you had no other option? We would like to hear how the process went. Leave a comment below. This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂