A third of us feel financially insecure
New data from Horizon Research reveals that roughly a third of the country doesn’t feel financially secure and thinks 2024 will be worse than last year.
The pessimism is not without good cause: Inflation is high, productivity is low, and economists have said the unemployment rate needs to rise – yes, more people should be out of work – before the situation will improve.
Surveyed in February, Horizon’s 1035 respondents – all adults – were asked how financially comfortable they were, whether they thought 2024 would be better for them than last year, and to rank a list of priorities they think the Government should focus on this year.
Horizons manager Julia Ord said surveys like these got a solid representation of how Aotearoa was feeling.
“If you say ‘I hear people are telling me’ or if you hear, ‘oh, I hear this’, well, this [survey] is what people are saying. We are robust and it’s a representative sample.”
People were asked the same questions in November 2023. Since then, the number of people reporting they’re comfortable has shrunk, while the number of those who say they’re uncomfortable has risen.
Families with kids at home reported feeling less financially comfortable than those without, and were overall less comfortable when compared to all kinds of households.
Among those with children, the specific household make-up of one parent with one or two kids at home showed the highest rates for feeling very uncomfortable and unable to afford the basics.
PERCEPTION REALITY
So how long will the pain last? While some headline metrics appear positive, for instance economic growth and low government debt by international standards, psychology professor
Marc Wilson said our perception of the economy was often a few steps behind reality.
Wilson, who teaches at the School of Psychology at the Victoria University of Wellington, recently conducted the (Mental Health) State of the Nation study in collaboration with the Sunday Star-Times, and said the Horizon research was in line with his own findings, with people gloomy about their financial prospects. “While the rate of inflation is slowing, this doesn’t mean prices are going down, just the rate of increase. Your bagel doesn’t go up between today and tomorrow, but it’s still blimmin’ expensive.”
Wilson said there was significant overlap between his research and the new Horizon data in terms of what people identified as their political priorities. Two thirds (66%) picked fixing the health system as one of their top three; National and ACT voters had law and order in their top three, while Labour and Greens voters had affordable housing.
“Health, housing, food prices all reflect a need for basic security – to be able to live one’s life safely. These are sometimes referred to as ‘materialist’ priorities’ … It’s hard to focus on being the best you can be, or making the world a more beautiful place, if you’re worrying about your next meal or a roof over your head.”
Promoting free speech or protecting the environment are more “post-materialist” values, things we can afford to worry about once the basics are taken care of, he says.
This is an abridged version of a story that ran in the Sunday Star-Times.