Older people facing impossible choices as cost of living continues to bite

By Penny Smith of RNZ

Age Concern Auckland says older people are facing impossible choices as the surging cost of living crisis continues to bite.

Annual inflation had risen to 4.1%, the highest level in more than two years.

Power prices were up 12% annually and rates increased by 8.8%.

Age Concern Auckland’s chief executive Kevin Lamb said a lot of older people were existing on superannuation alone.

“These latest increases, and particularly at this time of year, when they’re having to make those awful decisions of whether or not to heat their home or go and buy groceries, they are now living almost beyond their means where they simply can’t make ends meet.”

Lamb said that, in the past year, Age Concern Auckland had seen a 20 to 30% increase in calls for help.

“We’re dealing with potentially vulnerable older people who don’t have support networks around them, they don’t have a family to support them, they’re living in loneliness and isolation.”

Lamb added that climbing rates bills were putting a lot of pressure on superannuants and it was too hard for older people to get rates relief.

“If you are living in a multi-generational home where you have an older person, for example, you’ve also got younger children and a family’s living there where you might not get those rebates. It’s incredibly difficult to just sort of cope with an increase of the sorts of levels we’re seeing. It’s just putting too much pressure on people,” he said.

Lamb said that many seniors who asked Age Concern for help didn’t know that they could claim a rates rebate.

Households not benefiting from low wholesale electricity prices

Meanwhile, Consumer NZ said it was seeing record levels of interest in its electricity comparison website.

“We’ve been going 25 years, and last year was the busiest year by far,” said Powerswitch manager, Paul Fuge.

“We had over a million users of our site last year, and that’s continued into this year. What it indicates is people are really struggling with the cost of living and electricity prices are a big part of that, and they’re seeking relief through trying to find a cheaper provider.”

Fuge said the “lion’s share” of the increase in power prices was due to an increase in transmission and distribution costs.

He said those costs were regulated and were therefore unavoidable.

But Fuge said households were not seeing the benefit of record low wholesale electricity prices.

“In terms of procuring electricity in the wholesale market, those costs have actually fallen. So, the costs of purchasing electricity in the wholesale market are less. And those costs, those savings, should be being passed through to consumers now.

“What electricity companies are saying is they’ll, you know, likely result in lower prices or flat prices in the future. We’re saying that in any other market, when those input costs fall, consumers in a competitive market would see the benefits of that more immediately.”

Fuge said power bills should drop “soon”.

“If not, the regulator should be looking at why not.”

- RNZ