Social Security in Australia and New Zealand: Means‐tested or Just Mean?

The social security systems of Australia and New Zealand have traditionally rejected social insurance in favour of a means‐tested categorical safety net approach that provides considerable scope for targeting. The experience of both countries provides many examples of how targeting can be used to constrain social security spending, and these have attracted interest in other countries keen to contain the growth in their social security budgets. However, although there are many similarities between the two systems, there are also many differences and these have become greater as targeting has gathered momentum over the last two decades. This paper analyses how targeting has been used in each country as a way of illustrating the different approaches adopted. Attention is focused on how the retirement income systems of the two countries illustrate an increasing policy divergence, with the planned Australian transition to a “multi‐pillar” approach in contrast to the constant (and continuing) reform of New Zealand superannuation. Household data on the pattern of receipt of transfer incomes and their impact on the distribution of income are then used to explore the impact of targeting since the early 1980s. This analysis suggests that, in practice, targeting has had a far smaller impact on income inequality in both countries than is often claimed.