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10:35 am, June 27th, 2026 - 44 comments
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Yeah. Why don’t we means test education, super, health, sickness benefit, the military, disaster help, police…..?
Everything in fact?
But we don’t. For the simple reason that if the wealthy are paying their fair share of tax, they are just as entitled to tax funded social wages as anyone else.
Universal services do not require a huge army of accountants and clerks to decide who “deserves it”. Progressive taxes on all earnings act as an effective means test, which is much cheaper, fairer and less likely to get unexpected consequences.
Noting also. Most tax funded social wages would be “gone by lunchtime” if the wealthy don’t get them also. We have enough problems with them trying to pretend they don’t benefit from State education, if they go to private schools
Good, basic point behind what we have (had). It has to be pointed out continually (continuously?) as we have trouble absorbing facts and remembering, similar to the reaction to facts and value of Covid sequestration for all. (What's sequestration one asks, or many)? If we stress the cost saving then we might get somewhere.
A personal anecdote on cost-saving for the country's services: fewer catch-you-out laws with fines would be more efficient and result in the same effectiveness in reality. I made a quick left-turn to traffic stream when safe, and was chased with lights flashing by a cop for not coming completely to a Stop – he was from South Africa. Fewer laws, cutting out the unnecessary – less need for immigrants to staff state servants where not essential, actually not public servants. We have a callous dictatorship that's grinding us down.
Simple ban private health,and schools , the barstards will care about the country as a whole then .
KJT. Random musings on all sorts of things.: July 2014
+100 KJT.
No private (doctor) healthcare in Canada – if you want it, you have to go over the border to the US.
In New Zealand the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes. So your argument falls at first low hurdle.
the solution isn't to pan universalism, but to mend the tax system so it is fair.
That. Was my point!
Disagree Weka.
"Universal" NZSuper and ACC has volumes of bureaucrats administering them.
Do both.
how many staff administer Super as compared to if it were means tested?
I don't think the argument is no administration.
Mostly I see the argument for universalism, as in the post, with the assumption that it is cheaper, but I've not seen figures and analysis of cost.
You'd think information technology would have made it much cheaper and easier to means-test everything that used to be universal, but it really doesn't seem like it has.
do you mean like handing over everyone's bank records to the government?
Compare the current costs of administering super. With those for administering the accomadation supplement, for a lot less people.
My recent experience with trying to get extra support for a family member with learning difficulties. There was much more staff time and expense spent on refusing it, than it would have cost to simply employ the help asked for.
While I don't have numbers. The more complicated and non universal something is it is obvious that it is going to cost more. Including the costs of accountants and appeals processes looking for loopholes. Look at how much ACC money is lost in the appeals process.
I wish someone would compare the costs. Do you have the figures?
How could accommodation supplement be universalised? It depends on the person's situation and costs.
Both ACC and WINZ waste a hell of a lot of money on blocking access to entitlements. I assume this is done to try and save them money (again, we need the comparisons), but it also arises from the punitive mentality that sits separately from universalism.
I did have some numbers some years ago, from the former social welfare departments. when we had a precursor of this discussion. At that time means tested definitely were several times the admin cost of super, per person recieving them.
Up to date concrete figures a bit hard to find at the moment. I'll keep digging.
I did find a statement that the cost to administer for super, non means tested, per recipient was several times that for unemployment benefit, means tested. Looking for the numbers and attribution.
However I feel the point of universalism is not cost. It is that we all contribute according to our means and we also all benefit.
David Seymour would call that "Communism". MJ Savage called it "applied Christianity". New Zealanders used to call it “fairness”. I call it essential, for a cohesive and functional society.
there's that issue. Then there is the issue of whether pay to all the extra people costs more overall.
Progressive taxation should sort that out, but again I am surprised we don't have good data on this.
I hear you on social cohesion. We have a a bit of distance to get back to fairness being a universal value in this country.
Poor grammer. The statements intent was that the cost per person to administer super, was many times, less than, the cost per person to administer unemployment benefit.
Sorry, left out a comma from the original quote.
I’ve had a look at the latest publicly available MSD Budget 2026 material and done some back of the envelope maths.
MSD sought roughly $65 million to administer NZ Super and related senior entitlements. Based on roughly 970,000 recipients, that works out at about $67 per recipient.
By comparison, MSD sought roughly $1.23 billion to administer the broader working-age income support system. If you compare that against the reported number of people receiving Jobseeker Support, Sole Parent Support and Accommodation Supplement as at March 2026, it works out at roughly $3,000 per recipient.
That comparison is imperfect as I assume that the $1.23 billion includes some wider overheads. And, of course, some recipients will overlap between benefits.
But the order of magnitude is still striking.
It doesn’t prove universalism is always cheaper overall, because paying more people still costs money.
But it does support the narrower point: targeting is not free. The more conditional, discretionary and compliance-heavy a system becomes, the more money gets absorbed by assessment, administration, review, appeal and enforcement rather than by the transfer itself.
My experience has been in education.
But. On several occasions seen more staff time, money and resources spent on denying help to one child, than it would cost to give that help to an entire group.
how would you universalise the supplementary benefits? (which will make up a significant part of that $3,000 per person). Accommodation supplement, disability allowance, temporary additional support, special needs grants.
One obvious way is to raise benefit rates, but there would still be a need for targeted assistance.
This is the argument I've been having for years with lefties, who think we can do away with WINZ and have a UBI instead. How would it work in practice?
This isn't an argument against universalism, it's asking how to make it work.
I understood what you meant. I'm saying there is the per person cost, but also the cost of the extra people getting the support who wouldn't otherwise if something was targeted instead of being universal.
The idea is that this will be recouped via progressive taxation right?
Thats the idea.
Universalism reduces the administrative costs of delivering welfare, but it does not necessarily reduce the social costs that welfare exists to address.
People still have different housing costs, disabilities, caring responsibilities, and unexpected hardships. Unless those underlying differences are also reduced through broader social and economic reform, some form of targeted assistance will still be required.
The question is not whether universalism is desirable. It is how much complexity it can realistically eliminate before the remaining differences between people’s circumstances become too significant to ignore.
For example, we could raise core benefit rates high enough to reduce or even remove the need for the Accommodation Supplement. But that is not free, easy, or purely a welfare-system change. In practice it would require major changes elsewhere, especially in housing. You cannot universalise away the Accommodation Supplement while leaving the rental market largely untouched, because the cost pressure simply reappears through rents.
So a serious universalist model would probably need a much higher base payment, a more tightly regulated rental market, more public and non-market housing, and some residual targeted support for genuinely variable needs such as disability, emergency hardship, and unusual household circumstances.
That is why I do not think “just replace WINZ with a UBI” is a serious answer by itself. Universalism can reduce targeting, stigma, and bureaucracy, but it cannot abolish complexity unless the surrounding systems are also redesigned.
Quite. Hence the differences between TOP and GP policies. GP designed from a welfare pov and took actual need into account. TOP from an economic pov which is why they have major flaws in their policy.
What I still don't get from this conversation is whether universal Super (as an example) reduces costs. I'm not asking because I think this is the most important thing, I'm asking because I don't understand what people mean when they say it costs less.
It looks to me like there are two issues:
I had been assuming it was both from what people say generally, but now I am not so sure.
The admin cost of a universal payment of NZ Super is definitely lower than a targetted benefit; although it would not be very expensive to make the payments but then impose a specific level of additional tax for those with high taxable income from other courses.
Universal services such as Health provision and ACC are inherently more efficient than having separate contracts even with competition in the market – administration costs are much lower for universal entitlements. The parties of the right favour private provision, but in some areas that does not make service delivery any better, but does make it more expensive. The United States has one of the most expensive health systems in the world – at the top end service is outstanding, but not available to most; those complications make health provision too expensive for low earners; a real barrier for average earners, and overall lower services on average than countries like NZ and Great Britain. Medicare in Australia appears to be regarded as just another tax; albeit not based on income.
yes, this however doesn't answer my question.
Oh right.
I think most people are talking about administrative cost, not the total amount of money transferred.
The theory is that universal programmes are cheaper to administer because you do not need a large bureaucracy to assess eligibility, monitor compliance, reassess income, investigate relationships, or decide whether someone’s circumstances still qualify. More of the spending goes directly to recipients rather than being absorbed by the machinery of targeting.
But that is separate from the total fiscal cost. A universal payment may be cheaper to administer while still costing more overall, because more people receive it. You can claw some of that back through progressive taxation, but that is really a tax-and-transfer design question, not an administrative-cost question.
You’re looking facts & figures, soft & hard, but nobody likes to pay tax or rates and the evolving narrative is that things are becoming too expensive & fiscally unsustainable if nothing changes. Suggested changes may be prioritising, means-testing, or increasing taxes & rates, for example. This is not limited to ‘the wealthy’, which is why such narratives resonate and take hold with many.
The Greens are doing a fairly good job at countering the prevailing neo-liberal narrative but they get painted as loonies and Marxists and can, therefore, not be trusted.
Labour’s narrative is a timid and fearful whisper in the wind.
There's a well-established trade-off in public policy between the marginal benefit of targeting social programmes and the administrative overhead that targeting creates.
At some point, the additional savings from tighter targeting are outweighed by the cost and complexity of administering it. Where that point lies depends on the programme, how you account for administrative costs, and the political weight you attach to perceived versus actual fraud.
Universalism is one way of bending that curve by removing much of the targeting and compliance cost altogether. But it isn't the only way.
The cost comparison to include the personal cost of filling out multipage, really intrusive forms to apply for a means tested payment (eg the Australian means tested benefit application form) v filling out a short form (for super) or just turning up (public health).
I don't see the chief argument for Universalism is cost. I see it as an important part of making a functioning, cohesive society.
The cost factor is the one that appeals to those that are fixated on 'Knowing the cost of everything, but the value of nothing"!
Middle class and upper income people will welcome the idea of dropping universalism. They have got what they want and deserve and b''er the others, they can have what they deserve. That is the point of having universalism – it ensures that something will carry on to others who haven't been able to reach the same hilltop as oneself. But may be there is more in appreciating being alive amongst a diverse group of interesting people than he communism of the wealthy?
Bring in rent caps and progressive taxation as you or your trust/company owns more residential rentals. Remove ALL accomodation cost subsidies, which are direct payments from taxpayers to leasors. Why do we have them in a ‘free’ market?
The UBI in the UK (excludes govt pensions) is a disaster. Hated by beneficiaries. It is basically an employer subsidy, allowing wages to stay low, because the govt fills the gaps.
These types of subsidies are just Corporate and Capitalist Welfare.
"Remove ALL accomodation cost subsidies, which are direct payments from taxpayers to leasors. Why do we have them in a ‘free’ market?"
Amen to that. They can't have it both ways, a free market that we subsidise.
The AS is also a damning indictment of neo liberalism. The system is failing us. What chance for meaningful change with a House of (Landlord) Representatives?
how would beneficiaries afford rent without accommodation supplement?
The accommodation supplement, as we saw with student allowances, enable landlords a level of rent they wouldn't be able to charge without it.
Like WFF, for employers, the accommodation supplement ends up as a subsidy for landlords. As if they need any more.
The answer to unaffordable housing is, of course, one we used successfully in the 50's and 60's.
which is?
State houses.
Lots of them.
for beneficiaries, once enough state houses are built to bring down rents, then we can talk about doing away with accommodation supplement. But doing away with AS in isolation won't stop landlords putting rents up for beneficiaries as benefits rise.
And State Advances support for house buyers and central govt funding for housing infrastructure was around in the 50s and 60s as well.
Interesting information, Res Publica!!
The Nats and Act are fixated on targeting.
Yet, there was precious little targetting with their tax cuts in 2024. Nor the tax breaks for landlords – millionaires most likely benefited as much, if not more than Mums & Dads with their holiday bach.
Targeting: paying as little as possible to as few as possible, with bare-bones minimum.
Indeed, and an effective way to control and decide who’s ‘deserving’ and who’s not – a great way to enforce one’s own rules upon others and brand them with associated stigma & guilt as a free bonus.