In this episode of The Prosperity Project, Nadine Higgins talks to KiwiSaver expert Mary Holm about what’s changed, who benefits, and what still isn’t working.
A leading KiwiSaver expert is warning the scheme’s current settings risk deepening inequality, despite recent changes aimed to strengthen it.
Mary Holm told Nadine Higgins on The Prosperity Project podcast that the recent increases to contribution rates and expanded eligibility for younger workers were positive steps, but they don’t addressa more fundamental issue – growing inequality.
Holm says last year’s Government decision in the Budget to halve the government contribution may have appeared modest on paper, but “those on lower incomes were hurt a lot more ... the government contribution matters a heck of a lot to people on very low incomes”.
Analysis by the Retirement Commission shows that for those earning less than $30,000 a year, the Government tax credit will go from making up 15-20% of their KiwiSaver balance at retirement, to between 6-11%.
Financial advice guru Mary Holm. Photo / Babiche Martens
Holm warns that those on very low incomes are often unable to contribute and therefore miss out on both employer and government support, too.
“I actually think that employers should have to put the money in regardless of whether employees put it in too ... the employees who have stopped are probably the ones who are struggling more financially and need the employer help more than other people,” she says.
Otherwise, she argues: “There’s actually an incentive for an employer to talk an employee out of contributing.”
There is a raft other changes Holm would like to see to make the scheme fairer, including a change first proposed in 2019 but never progressed – government contributions for beneficiaries, paid on top of their benefit payments.
“It gives them a stake in their future ... something to be thinking about in the longer term,” she says.
Hardship withdrawals applications have spiked in recent years – which is why Holm also backs the introduction of “sidecar” savings, to provide a more accessible emergency fund attached to KiwiSaver, to prevent unexpected events plunging people into short-term high-interest debt.
“The debt just balloons and people go right off the rails financially and it’s awful,” she says.
Holm is equally critical of employer practices like total remuneration, where both employee and employer KiwiSaver contributions are paid out of the salary, rather than the employer contribution being on top.
“It’s not fair ... it’s not playing ball on the part of the employers,” she says.
