Cost of living: Are New Zealand households better off now than in 1994?

For everyone except high-income households, housing costs have gone up significantly more than other costs over the last 30 years, Gareth Kiernan says. Photo / 123RF

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ

Ever wondered how your household income compares to what your parents had when you were growing up?

Inflation has pushed up the cost of many things over recent decades and, in many cases, wage growth has helped soften the blow – with the notable exception of housing.

Here’s how the numbers compare.

If you had a household income of $80,000 in the 1990s, you would need to be earning more than $200,000 now to have the same sort of purchasing power.

In 1994, 113,500 New Zealand households earned more than $76,500, so a household income of $80,000 would have been relatively high. Now, the top decile of household income earners is about $235,000.

In 1994, that $80,000 household would have after-tax income per person of $29,579 if the income was evenly split, an annual mortgage payment of $8957 and other spending of $50,200, Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said.

Adjusted for CPI inflation, and according to the median house price and prevailing interest rates, that same level of spending would have cost $102,418 a year in 2024, and the annual mortgage repayment would be $53,964.

To have the same purchasing power, he said, the household would have to earn $206,301 – or $78,191 each after tax, if the income was spread evenly.

If a household was earning about $53,550 in 1994 – which was in the 75th percentile of incomes – they would now need to be earning $150,100 – still around the 75th percentile now, or slightly under – to have the same buying power.

A middle-income household on $32,200 in 1994 would have to earn $102,400 now.

Kiernan said where those households sat in the distribution of incomes had not changed a huge amount.

“But for everyone except high-income households, housing costs have gone up significantly more than other costs over the last 30 years.”

The median house price had increased from $132,000 in September 1994 to $753,000 in July 2024, according to the Real Estate Institute. As well as servicing a higher mortgage payment than 30 years ago, first-home buyers now had to save a larger share of their income for a deposit.

If someone required a 20% deposit on a $132,000 house in 1994, it would have been $26,400 – about a third of that $80,000-a-year household’s income. Compare this to a $150,600 deposit for a median-priced house now, or roughly three-quarters of the annual income of a $206,301-earning household.

Independent economist Shamubeel Eaqub said households were not financially better off now – but other aspects of life had improved.

“When it comes to things like medicines, technology – we’ve got access to way better things than our predecessors ever did.

“Money just buys you so much more now, whether it’s entertainment or technology or life-saving treatment. All of those things are far more available to a higher quality than we’ve ever had before. If you’ve got economic resources, life is better.”

He said he looked each year at what that cohort’s income profile looked like, to determine whether they were likely to earn more than the previous generation.

Since 1985, the answer had been no, he said.

“Since then on average, in real terms, you’re likely to earn less than your parents over your lifetime … there’s lots of uncertainty in that. But given what we know now, given the distribution of income and what we can see, it is looking a bit tough.”

He said that would not be universal and some industries and sectors would be better off than others.

“But even in some professions things are shifting: law, medicine. Those were in the past seen as surefire ways to [become] at least the upper-middle class, if not being very wealthy. It’s not clear that’s still the case.”

He said people who were adults now could consider their stewardship role in relation to the future for their children.

Issues such as climate change and social cohesion were likely to be important for future generations, he said.

But the country needed to take a more forward-looking approach to its spending and investment.

“Are we actually investing in future generations or spending for ourselves?”

He said the post-war years had been characterised by investing for the future, but that had changed in the 1970s and 1980s.

More recently, investments were often made with the aim of catching up with what had already happened, rather than planning for the future.

“If we want progress, it’s almost too late for this generation – what are we going to do for our children? What investment are we willing to make?

“It’s difficult but it’s not terrible, we have much to be thankful for. Life by and large is pretty good for a lot of us. To me, it’s the distributional and generational aspect. I don’t think we should be complacent, we shouldn’t say nothing is good, that’s not true – but nor should we say it’s good enough. That’s not true, either.”

When people considered housing costs, it brought the issue into focus, he said.

“We talk about inequality and poverty and no one cares. But if you talk about the fact your children will not be able to own their own home and your grandchildren definitely won’t, that really hits home for people… everything else is quite technical.

“Is your children’s generation as likely to own a home as your generation at that age? The answer is no and that’s quite powerful.”

Kiernan said most households would have double incomes now, particularly if they were trying to buy a house.

“If you go right back to the 50s you had the man going out and working and that was how you afford the house. We’ve had a transition – and this is not the only driver – of ‘I could afford a better house if you went and worked part-time’ that occurred and there was almost like a snowball effect from there.

“You couldn’t afford a house on one income, so everyone had to work part-time then everyone had to work full-time. There was choice around it but there is now very little choice. If you want to buy a house you do need two incomes - sometimes more.”

- RNZ