Benefit Forecasts for the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update 2025

The Treasury’s Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) 2025 released on 16 December 2025 includes benefit number forecasts as part of the overall fiscal forecasts

The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) benefit forecasts were finalised on 5 November 2025. This publication describes the key benefit number forecasts from the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) 2025.

The last forecast was the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) 2025, which was published in May 2025.

These forecasts are important because they are used to inform Budget decisions and the New Zealand Government spends a large portion of the Budget on Benefits or Related Expenses, accounting for around 30 percent of Core Crown Expenses.

For the purposes of this publication, the number of people on a working-age benefit is the total number of people who are receiving Jobseeker Support (excluding Jobseeker Support Student Hardship), Sole Parent Support, and Supported Living Payment for all age groups. This differs from the definition of working-age benefits used in official MSD reporting.¹

¹ MSD's forecasts use month average figures for benefit numbers at all ages, which differs from official reporting. These differ because MSD's official reporting defines working-age clients as aged 18-64, and also includes Emergency Benefit, Emergency Maintenance Allowance, Jobseeker Support Student Hardship and Youth Payment/Young Parent Payment and are counted at month end.

The number of people receiving a working-age benefit is expected to peak in January 2026 before beginning to decrease

The number of people receiving a working-age benefit is forecast to rise to around 415,700 people in January 2026.

After January 2026 the number of people receiving a working-age benefit is expected to fall to 380,500 by June 2030. This is a decrease of around 35,200 people.

Figure 1: Working-age benefit numbers

Figure 1 shows the historic and forecast number of people on a working-age benefit.

The dotted line shows the actual number of people who received a working-age benefit between June 2018 and September 2025. MSD’s forecasts of the number of people expected to receive a working-age benefit at BEFU 2025 and HYEFU 2025 are displayed by the dashed line and solid line, respectively.

At HYEFU 2025, the number of people receiving a working-age benefit is expected to rise and peak at around 415,700 in January 2026.

After January 2026 the number of people receiving a working-age benefit is expected to decrease to around 380,500 in June 2030.

Figure 2: Jobseeker Support

Figure 2 shows the historic and forecast number of people receiving Jobseeker Support.

The dotted line shows the actual number of people that received Jobseeker Support between June 2018 and September 2025. MSD’s forecasts of the number of people expected to receive Jobseeker Support at BEFU 2025 and HYEFU 2025 are displayed by the dashed line and solid line, respectively.

At HYEFU 2025, the number of people receiving Jobseeker Support is expected to rise and peak at around 221,900 in January 2026.

After January 2026 the number of people receiving Jobseeker Support is expected to decrease to around 187,900 in June 2030.