Social Development Minister Louise Upston introduced the Social Security (Jobseeker Support and Accommodation Supplement) Amendment Bill in Parliament on 14 May 2026, packaging together two of the more politically charged Budget 2025 welfare changes into a single piece of legislation.
The first limb of the bill applies a new Parental Assistance Test to 18 and 19 year olds without dependent children who apply for Jobseeker Support or the Emergency Benefit. The second lifts the threshold at which homeowners can claim the Accommodation Supplement from 30 percent of their income up to 40 percent, leaving the calculation tighter than it has been at any time since the supplement was introduced in 1993.
Upston says the package is about getting young New Zealanders off welfare and onto more productive paths. In her release announcing the bill, she said “New Zealanders deserve a welfare system that is firm, fair and simple” and that “our Government expects 18- and 19-year-olds to be in further education, training or work β not on welfare”.
Officials have estimated that 18 and 19 year olds who go on Jobseeker spend on average a further 21 years drawing a main benefit over the rest of their lives. Upston cited that modelling as the justification for acting now. “With modelling indicating that 18- and 19-year-olds on Jobseeker support are estimated to spend an average 21 more years supported by a main benefit, action is required to ensure welfare is sustainable in the long term and to build a future for young New Zealanders,” she said.
Under the Parental Assistance Test, a young applicant has to show two things before they can be paid. Their parents must earn at or below an indexed income threshold currently set at 65,529 dollars, the same cut out point used for a couple with children on the Supported Living Payment, and they must show that they cannot reasonably rely on their parents because of estrangement, family violence or some other genuine barrier. The Ministry of Social Development has previously said the change will make about 4,300 young people ineligible from late 2026, while around 4,700 will keep their entitlement, and that the package will save about 163 million dollars over four years according to 1News.
The Accommodation Supplement change is the part that has caught housing and welfare advocates by surprise. Renters, boarders, superannuitants, Veteran’s Pension recipients and Supported Living Payment recipients are all carved out, so the bite of the change falls on homeowners on lower incomes who are paying a mortgage, rates and insurance. Upston framed it as targeting. “This will target the Accommodation Supplement to those with the greatest need, while continuing to support the most vulnerable groups,” she said.
Critics say a homeowner who is already stretched having to put 30 percent of their income into housing costs is hardly affluent, and that pushing the threshold up to 40 percent is a serious squeeze. Isaac Gunson of the Child Poverty Action Group told RNZ that households at the new threshold would experience deeper after housing cost poverty and may end up deferring maintenance, with knock on effects on cold and damp homes and the health of children inside them. The minister was unable to tell RNZ how many homeowners would actually lose entitlement under the change, or what the specific dollar savings on that limb would be.
The asset test on the supplement, set at 16,200 dollars for couples and sole parents, has not moved in more than three decades. That has caught more and more savers and KiwiSaver balances over time, and was left untouched by the bill.
Coalition partners have lined up behind the package, although for different reasons. ACT leader David Seymour said “the best way to get teenagers working is to stop paying them not to”. Labour social development spokesperson Willie Jackson accused the Government of driving young people offshore, telling 1News that “Christopher Luxon is shutting young people out of the future they deserve” and pointing to record migration to Australia and rising youth unemployment as evidence the welfare squeeze is happening at the wrong moment.
The bill will be referred to the Social Services and Community Select Committee for public submissions. The youth Jobseeker changes are scheduled to take effect in November 2026, and the Accommodation Supplement threshold lift will run on a separate commencement timetable set out in the bill.
If you want a sense of where each party stands on welfare, housing costs and the role of family support, our 2026 voting tool matches you to the parties whose positions are closest to your own.
What do you think? Should parents earning above 65 thousand dollars be expected to support their 18 and 19 year old children before the state steps in, and is lifting the homeowner accommodation threshold to 40 percent reasonable targeting or a cost of living kick to people who own a modest home? Tell us in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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