And the way the law currently stands, employers don\u2019t have to contribute to the KiwiSaver funds of workers aged 65 and over.<\/p>\n
Yes, superannuation payments from the Government kick in at the age of 65, so older New Zealanders are receiving financial support for their later years.<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019re still working, surely it\u2019s only fair that you receive the same benefits as your younger colleagues?<\/p>\n
With average life expectancy now in the 80s, it\u2019s likely that our retirement savings will need to see us through several decades.<\/p>\n
And current KiwiSaver balance averages indicate those could be tough decades for some.<\/p>\n
My son\u2019s one of the children born in the past five years who can expect to live into his 80s or beyond.<\/p>\n
But will his later years be spent relaxing and enjoying time with friends and family, or is he more likely to be head down, stressed about funding his lifestyle and healthcare needs?<\/p>\n
According to Stats NZ\u2019s labour force projections, by 2078 up to 15% of New Zealand\u2019s workforce will be aged 65+.<\/p>\n
Making it compulsory for employers to continue to contribute to their workers\u2019 KiwiSaver funds seems a no-brainer, helping these people to boost their balances in those critical last years of saving.<\/p>\n
At Westpac NZ, we welcomed the recent changes to KiwiSaver to increase the default contribution rate to 4% for both employees and employers from 2028.<\/p>\n
But we think there\u2019s an opportunity to do more to support people with their savings \u2013 continuing employer contributions is an obvious next step.<\/p>\n
We understand that this would be an extra cost for businesses, but it would be a relatively small addition to overall wage costs, and the change could be softened through measures like phasing.<\/p>\n
I was born in Australia and first entered the workforce there at the age of 16. <\/p>\n
My first job was scanning groceries in a supermarket, at a time when compulsory superannuation contributions were set at 7%. <\/p>\n
Over the ensuing decades, I\u2019ve seen firsthand the success of the Australian Government\u2019s long-term approach to gradually increasing contributions \u2013 largely because both the Government and businesses were given multi-year timeframes to adjust. And in Australia, employer contributions have no age limit.<\/p>\n
KiwiSaver turned 18 last month, meaning it\u2019s officially now an adult. Is it time for us as a nation to reflect that adult status and ensure we have the right framework in place to best support people with their retirement savings?<\/p>\n
Sign up to <\/b>Herald<\/b> Premium Editor\u2019s Picks<\/b><\/a>, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-chief Murray Kirkness picks the week\u2019s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for <\/b>Herald<\/b> Premium <\/b>here<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And the way the law currently stands, employers don\u2019t have to contribute to the KiwiSaver funds of workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[79,34711,18,3793,3854,24928,4080,34714,19,17,3849,13478,24375,26506,34712,234,235,34713,1213],"class_list":{"0":"post-46658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-contributions","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-employers","12":"tag-facts","13":"tag-fair","14":"tag-for","15":"tag-hearn","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-its","19":"tag-kiwisaver","20":"tag-make","21":"tag-only","22":"tag-over65s","23":"tag-personal-finance","24":"tag-personalfinance","25":"tag-sarah","26":"tag-to"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}