LINDSAY MITCHELL: Latest benefit numbers - beware the spin
- Administrator
- Mar 22
- 1 min read
Await some spin regarding falling beneficiary numbers.
But be skeptical.
After two months of data problems, MSD has managed to produce monthly statistics for February 2026.
The total percentage of working-age people on a benefit has dropped from 13.1% in December 2025 to 12.8 percent in February 2026.
However, benefit numbers are consistently subject to seasonal changes. For example, students pile onto the Jobseeker Support Student Hardship over summer.
What really matters is the year-on-year comparison.
In February 2025 the percentage of working-age people on a benefit was 12.4 percent. Now it's 12.8 percent. Up.
And if you hear about higher cancellations of benefits, that's largely due to people cancelling their Jobseeker Support Student Hardship.
And by the way, those cancellations mainly constitute a transfer back to Student Allowance. Another 'benefit' but one that comes out of the Ministry of Education's budget.
In the chart below, what matters is the final right-hand column. All the big number benefits are up.
National need to see blue, not red figures. For all their well-intentioned work-activation policies, the bulk of people forming the statistics below will stay put without some radical re-think.
NB: Because data was lost for December and January, the "monthly" change actually covers three months.
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Thanks Lindsay. Looks like MSD and Stats are pretty useless.
Why is there no breakdown by ethnicity? Surely that’s a question all beneficiaries are asked? A breakdown by citizenship or years of residency would help see the impact from immigration.
The reunification policy was another “kindness” that is probably costing us dearly.
Overall unemployment figures don't say very much. We need more fine grained stats, Yes there will be a large blob of lazy drug addled no-hopers in there, but what about older people who are losing their jobs to AI. AI is the massive elephant in the room. At first it was just computers hollowing out MIDDLE RANGE jobs - though for decades computers were merely very useful tools. Now the human brain itself is being made redundant. Only some kind of Universal Basic Income will deal with this issue. Robots are even taking over burger-flipping. So what kind of jobs are these unemployed supposed to do? Toiling in the fields? Strawberry picking which is actually physically quite draining. One last…
As a cost-related matter, all citizens should read the Green Party' s additional revenue proposals for wealth tax, trust tax on residential property and death duties. A Taxpayers Union document clearly shows that the middle class would be virtually eliminated - but not the mega-wealthy. The marxist philosophy of the Greens is clear . This policy could become critical if Labour were forced to negotiate a coalition with this party.
Link:
https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://assets.nationbuilder.com/taxpayers/pages/33102/attachments/original/1773983748/Green_With_Envy.pdf?1773983748
Lindsay, would like to see your stats on Working Income for Families - what that's costing us (tax rebates) where effectively no tax is paid.
Where are the stats for the cost of resthome care provided by NZ taxpayers for immigrant elderly (family reunification) who have lived in our country for 10 yrs or worked for 5 yrs, they have hardly contributed taxes if anything, costing NZ taxpayers on average $7,000 per month.
Seems some groups have been selectively overlooked.
https://x.com/Charteddaily
Can't blame the "system issues" on not enough staff....