48% now feel they have to leave NZ to get ahead

The Kākā by Bernard Hickey · Oct 14, 2026 · 8m

Mōrena. Voters are most focused on cost of living and underfunded hospitals in this election campaign. National leader Christopher Luxon was criticised in the second leaders debate last night for wrongly saying the minimum wage was keeping up with those living costs.

This came as a big new survey published this morning has found the biggest group of New Zealanders (27%) now feel they’re struggling financially, up from 16.5% who felt that in 2020. There was also a dramatic increase in respondents saying they felt they had to leave New Zealand to get ahead (48% vs 28% in 2020).

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