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Benefit Forecasts for the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update 2026
The Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) 2026 released on 28 May 2026 includes benefit number forecasts as part of the overall fiscal forecasts
The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) benefit forecasts were finalised on 10 April 2026. This publication describes the key benefit number forecasts from the Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) 2026.
The last forecast was the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update (HYEFU) 2025, which was published in December 2025.
These forecasts are important because they are used to inform Budget decisions. 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 ages. This differs from the definition of working-age benefits used in official MSD reporting.
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 remain around current levels for the remainder of 2026
The number of people receiving a working-age benefit reached 409,700 people in March 2026 and is expected to remain around this level throughout 2026.
After this, the number of people receiving a working-age benefit is expected to decrease to around 387,300 in June 2030.
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 March 2026. MSD’s forecasts of the number of people expected to receive a working-age benefit at HYEFU 2025 and BEFU 2026 and are displayed by the dashed line and solid line, respectively.
The number of people receiving Jobseeker Support (JS) is expected to remain around current levels for the remainder of 2026
The number of people receiving JS was around 216,300 in March 2026 and is expected to remain around this level throughout 2026.
After 2026, the number of people receiving JS is expected to decrease to around 194,000 in June 2030.
Figure 2: Jobseeker Support numbers
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 March 2026. MSD’s forecasts of the number of people expected to receive Jobseeker Support at HYEFU 2025 and BEFU 2026 and are displayed by the dashed line and solid line, respectively.