I came to politics through employment law because I saw, up close, how important a stable, fairly paid job is to workers’ dignity, options and protection. I know that not just professionally, but personally.
The income I earned protected me during one of the most difficult periods of my life, the breakdown of my marriage. It was a painful destabilising and emotionally exhausting time, but it wasn't financially catastrophic. It was, ultimately, what economic security looks like in practice. Every New Zealander deserves that same buffer, not as a stroke of luck, but as a baseline.
I've been in politics for a while now, and as far as I understand it, the role of government should be to design prosperity in a way that guarantees that baseline through the creation of a sustainably resilient economy. Yet, many contemporary policy settings are pushing things in the opposite direction, embedding instability into labour markets and social systems in ways that risk entrenching a permanent underclass, rather than preventing one.
Increasingly, economists and sociologists point to the rise of the precariat, a class of workers in insecure, low paid and unpredictable employment, as evidence of this shift. When large parts of the workforce live without stability or certainly, it affects more than just individual households.It destabilises communities, weakens social cohesion and leaves entire economies more vulnerable to shocks. Resilience isn't simply about GDP growth, good numbers and balanced books. It's about whether a lost job, increased grocery prices or a family crisis becomes a temporary setback or something more enduring.
The current Government is reinforcing exactly that kind of insecurity. A heavily market-driven housing system, shaped in part by tax settings, such as the absence of a comprehensive capital gains tax, and the reintroduction of interest deductibility for landlords, continues to favour asset owners. Labour market flexibility has also meant the normalisation of short-term contracts, casualisation and gig-style work, leaving many without predictable hours or income.
Welfare settings remain relatively punitive and tightly means tested, often failing to keep pace with the real cost of living, while abatement thresholds can discourage people from taking on additional work. At the same time, persistent underinvestment in public services and infrastructure places more cost and risk onto individuals.
Together, these choices don't just respond to economic conditions, they help shape them, sustaining the very precarity that leaves so many households exposed to shocks.
That fragility becomes painfully apparent when the cost of essentials rises.Inflation is often discussed in aggregate terms, but the lived reality is far more specific. It's the price of milk, petrol, rent and electricity that determines whether families can cope. It's when the subsidy for transport to vital community care is cut by 15%. For higher income households, these increases and cuts are frustrating, for many others they can be destabilising or catastrophic. When wages do not keep pace with the cost of living, resilience quickly erodes.
We are already seeing the consequences. Community organisations are unable to cope with rising demand and food banks are under increasing pressure. Economic strain does not stay neatly within household budgets. It shows up as stress, as instability and, all too often, as family violence. These outcomes are the human cost of decisions that prioritise short-term relief for some, over long-term resilience for all.
International thinkers like Mariana Mazzucato, alongside institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, have emphasised the importance of inclusive growth to building resilience, ensuring that economic gains are broadly shared and that public investment supports both productivity and well being. Countries that wear the shocks best are those where workers are secure, wages keep pace with the living costs and public services provide a genuine safety net.
For New Zealand, this means rethinking what we value. A resilient economy is one in which caregivers, teachers, tradespeople and service workers are paid fairly for their contribution. It’s one where losing a job does not immediately threaten a family stability, and where life's inevitable challenges, like the end of a relationship, do not result in financial ruin.
We're not short of options when looking at solutions, we're short of resolve. Initiatives such as raising pay in undervalued sectors, backing secure, predictable work and reshaping the tax system so it actually bends toward those under pressure, are well within reach. So, too, is rebuilding public services into something people can rely on when life goes wrong.
I came of age having been taught that success flows naturally to those who work hardest and that wealth at the top will eventually ‘trickle down'. We now know that nothing's ever ‘trickled down’ and that without deliberate policy, it never will. Instead, we see current economic settings expanding the number of workers in insecure, low paid and unpredictable work. If we don't choose to rewrite the rules and stop the growth of this precariat, we will continue supporting a system that seriously disadvantages a sizeable number of us very specifically and, in the end, all of us. (Helen White)
helen.white@parliament.govt.nz www.labour.org.nz/HelenWhite
Helen White, MP for Mt Albert: How We’re Building an Economy that Fails People
