Household income and housing-cost statistics provide income and expenditure information for households, and demographic data on households and individuals in New Zealand.
The Household Economic Survey, from which these measures were estimated, was conducted between July 2022 and June 2023. Households were asked to report income and expenditure for the 12 months prior to interview. This means that for some households, income will refer to income received in the 2021/2022 year.
Child poverty statistics: Year ended June 2023 - technical appendix has more information about the survey and methodology used for estimating child poverty rates.
Key facts
In the year ended June 2023 compared with the year ended June 2022, measures of housing costs showed:
- average weekly expenditure on total mortgage payments increased from $475.00 to $605.60 (up 27.5 percent)
- average weekly expenditure on total rent payments increased from $410.70 to $427.20 (up 4.0 percent)
- for every $100 of their disposable income in the year ended June 2023, Aotearoa New Zealand households spent an average of $22.32 on housing costs (up 7.4 percent, from $20.79).
Measures of household income showed:
- average gross annual household income increased from $117,408 to $126,411 (up 7.7 percent)
- average annual household income from wages and salaries increased from $79,363 to $83,410 (up 5.1 percent)
- average annual household equivalised disposable income (after tax and transfer payments) increased from $53,192 to $56,919 (up 7.0 percent)
- average annual household equivalised disposable income, after housing costs were deducted, increased from $42,234 to $44,142 (up 4.5 percent)
- 36.1 percent of households perceived their income as either 'not enough' or 'only just enough' (up 3.7 percentage points).
Housing costs
Housing costs include expenditure on rent, mortgages (principal and interest repayments), property rates, and building-related insurance.
In the year ended June 2023, for households with expenditure on housing, the average cost for housing per week was $423.20, up from $369.50 (14.5 percent).
Compared with the previous year:
- total rent payments were $427.20 per week, up from $410.70 (up 4.0 percent)
- total mortgage payments were $605.60 per week, up from $475.00 (up 27.5 percent)
- mortgage interest payments were $311.60 per week, up from $207.90 (up 49.9 percent)
- mortgage principal repayments were $307.90 (unchanged from the previous year)
- property rates were $68.00 per week, up from $64.20 (up 5.9 percent)
- building-related insurance costs were $46.40 per week, up from $40.70 (up 14.1 percent).
Housing affordability and quality
As housing costs approach 40 percent or more of a household's income, it becomes more likely that a household will find it difficult to meet other everyday expenses, particularly for low-income households.
In the year ended June 2023, the proportion of households spending more than 40 percent of their income on housing costs was:
- 18.2 percent for all households (up 2.9 percentage points)
- 27.5 percent for households that did not own their dwelling (up 3.4 percentage points)
- 13.3 percent for households that owned or partly-owned their dwelling (including dwellings held in a family trust) (up 2.6 percentage points).
Housing quality refers to aspects of housing that often influence costs or are made more difficult due to the cost of housing.
In the year ended June 2023:
- 25.7 percent of households had either a major or minor issue with dampness or mould (up 1.8 percentage points from the previous year)
- 20.5 percent of households had either a major or minor issue with heating and/or keeping warm enough in winter (unchanged from the previous year).
Household income
Equivalisation is the process of adjusting household income by taking into account household size and composition. This allows more accurate comparisons between different types of households.
How we measure child poverty has more detail on how equivalisation works.
In the year ended June 2023, average annual household equivalised disposable income was:
- $56,919 before housing costs, up from $53,192 (7.0 percent)
- $44,142 after housing costs, up from $42,234 (4.5 percent).
| Income | Before housing costs |
| Lowest quintile | 21527 |
| Second quintile | 36563 |
| Third quintile | 50225 |
| Fourth quintile | 66522 |
| Highest quintile | 114473 |
| 21183 | 21871 |
|---|---|
| 36381 | 36745 |
| 50026 | 50424 |
| 66240 | 66804 |
| 111642 | 117304 |
| Income | After housing costs |
| Lowest quintile | 9782 |
| Second quintile | 26243 |
| Third quintile | 38506 |
| Fourth quintile | 53349 |
| Highest quintile | 98936 |
| 8849 | 10715 |
|---|---|
| 26075 | 26411 |
| 38326 | 38686 |
| 53069 | 53629 |
| 96148 | 101724 |
Average annual household equivalised disposable income, before housing costs, by region for the year ended June 2023 was:
- $63,391 in Auckland (up 9.9 percent)
- $65,700 in Wellington (up 8.3 percent)
- $51,663 in the rest of the North Island (up 4.7 percent)
- $54,066 in Canterbury (unchanged)
- $51,141 in the rest of the South Island (up 6.1 percent).
Average annual household equivalised disposable income, before housing costs, by ethnicity for the year ended June 2023 was:
- $60,790 for European (up 9.2 percent)
- $50,238 for Māori (up 8.1 percent)
- $47,797 for Pacific peoples (up 9.0 percent)
- $55,808 for Asian (unchanged)
- $53,540 for Middle Eastern/Latin America/African (unchanged).
Material hardship
Cost-of-living pressures have left a greater number of households in 'material hardship,' defined in the Household Economic Survey as a household that is unable to afford six or more of 17 items most people would regard as essential. A household that was unable to afford nine or more of these items was defined to be in 'severe material hardship.' These items include putting off doctor's visits, going without fresh fruit and vegetables, and putting up with feeling cold, due to the cost.
In the year ended June 2023, 8.5 percent of the total population of Aotearoa New Zealand were in material hardship, an increase of 1.1 percentage points compared with the previous year, and 3.5 percent of the population were in severe material hardship (up 0.9 percentage points).
Income adequacy
Survey respondents are asked how well their total household income meets their everyday needs.
In the year ended June 2023, 36.1 percent of all households in Aotearoa New Zealand felt that their income was either 'not enough' or 'only just enough', up 3.7 percentage points compared with the previous year.
| Rate | 2022 |
| Income 'not enough' or 'only just enough' | 32.3 |
| Received help at least once from a welfare/community organisation | 6.8 |
| Household 'crowded' or 'severely crowded' | 3.6 |
| Accommodation has a problem with dampness or mould | 23.8 |
| Accommodation has a problem with heating and/or keeping warm in winter | 20.5 |
| 31.1 | 33.4 |
|---|---|
| 6.2 | 7.4 |
| 3.1 | 4.1 |
| 22.7 | 24.9 |
| 19.5 | 21.4 |
| Rate | 2023 |
| Income 'not enough' or 'only just enough' | 35.9 |
| Received help at least once from a welfare/community organisation | 7.1 |
| Household 'crowded' or 'severely crowded' | 4.0 |
| Accommodation has a problem with dampness or mould | 25.7 |
| Accommodation has a problem with heating and/or keeping warm in winter | 20.5 |
| 35.0 | 36.7 |
|---|---|
| 6.6 | 7.7 |
| 3.6 | 4.4 |
| 24.9 | 26.5 |
| 19.6 | 21.3 |
In the year ended June 2023, 7.1 percent of households reported receiving help at least once from a welfare/community organisation, such as a church or a food bank. This figure was unchanged from the year ended June 2022.
Definitions and metadata
Household income and housing cost statistics in DataInfo+ outlines the background to the survey, and the data quality and definitions in this release.
Data collection for the year ended June 2023
Data collection for the latest Household Economic Survey was reduced due to ongoing challenges in the collection environment. The achieved sample size was approximately 14,100 households, whereas the designed target sample size for the survey is 20,000 households.
After thorough data quality analysis, household income and housing-cost statistics for the year ended June 2023 were deemed fit-for-purpose, but users should note that margins of error are higher than designed for. Furthermore, estimates of annual change have larger sample errors than in previous years due to the significantly reduced sample size for the year ended June 2022.
Stats NZ typically publishes household income and housing-cost statistics by regional council area. While these are published for the year ended June 2023, data quality issues associated with the previous year mean that annual changes are not available.
Child poverty statistics: Year ended June 2023 - technical appendix provides more information regarding this decision and analysis of data quality.
Impacts of disrupted data collection on 2022 Household Economic Survey statistics details the impact of COVID-19 on data collection and on data quality for the year ended June 2022.
Data updates to previously published statistics
We have updated previously published estimates of household income and housing-cost measures for the year ended June 2022 using the most recently available administrative data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure and updated population estimates.
Updates to the four key income measures were as follows:
- average annual household income (gross) increased from $117,126 to $117,408
- average annual household disposable income increased from $92,451 to $92,678
- average annual household equivalised disposable income (after tax and transfer payments) increased from $53,031 to $53,192
- average annual household equivalised disposable income (after tax and transfer payments and after housing costs are deducted) increased from $42,068 to $42,234.
Applying the Stats NZ revisions policy to outputs from the Household Economic Survey sets out our policy for updating the Household Economic Survey data.
Technical enquiries
Marney Edwards
[email protected]
ISSN 2537-9690
Next release
Household income and housing-cost statistics: Year ended June 2024 will be released in 2025.
