Labour's finance spokesperson Grant Robertson said benefits did need a boost, but that the cost of living also needed to come down.
"We need to lift the incomes of all New Zealanders.
"There are lots of things that impact on costs, costs of going to the doctor, cost of rent especially which is often very expensive.
"So one of our focuses is making housing more affordable and more accessible so that reduces the amount you have to spend there.
"Also to make sure we keep the supported living benefit up to meet the costs that people have."
Robertson said Winz itself needed a culture overhaul so that it wasn't such a battle when people had an unexpected expense.
National's Wellington Central candidate Nicola Willis said no one should have to choose between food and going to the doctor.
"That's a big part of why we've announced this election, cheaper doctor visits for an additional 600,000 New Zealanders.
"We've made a commitment to increase supported living payments by CPI [Consumer Price Index] every April, we've also made increases to accommodation supplements."
Green Party disability issues spokesperson Mojo Mathers agreed with Robertson that Winz needed reform, and added that the Greens wanted to increase all core benefits by 20 percent.
"And to stop this endless requirement to prove that you still have a disability.
"Winz itself has become inaccessible for many people with disabilities."
Even for those people who were physically able to work, they told the politicians they still weren't able to support themselves.
Another audience member, Fiona Williams, told the candidates that she wanted a job but employers wouldn't give her a chance.
Willis answered to say that National was already working on the issue, and having some success with the Employability Programme.
"We work alongside people with health conditions and disabilities, and understand what the barriers are that have kept them out of work.
"And, in particular, working alongside employers so they can understand how they can tap what is often an untapped resource, in the form of people who have disabilities but want to work, and face barriers to do so."
Willis said the Enabling Good Lives programme had helped 585 people find jobs in Christchurch.
Robertson said Labour had specifically looked at the issues facing disabled New Zealanders in their Future of Work project.
He said employers sometimes needed support to take people on.
"We need to build a much stronger connection between the training programmes, and bringing people into employment at the end of this.
"It's all very well to do a training course, but then if there isn't a job at the end of that it feels like a wasted effort.
"There needs to be a specific employment strategy for disabled New Zealanders, that the Government has a mandate to implement."
Mathers said the Green Party felt strongly about the issue, as the majority of people wanted to work, but "the jobs just aren't there".
"We believe that the public sector needs to lead the way and be a positive employer of disabled people.
"We will amend the law to place a stronger emphasis on stability from the state sector, to give disabled people an equal chance at a job.
"We will increase job support funding, and also make it more flexible, so that job support funding can be used for part-time work and voluntary work, to provide that pathway to jobs."
