Inflation
Did your pay rise keep up? Explore New Zealand purchasing power after tax and household costs.
Inflation turns a change in salary into a more practical question: what can that pay buy? Enter a starting year, past and current pay, and a household profile to explore estimated New Zealand purchasing power after tax and rising household costs.
The result is a shareable pay comparison, with annual and weekly changes, an estimate of the salary needed to keep up, and a breakdown of representative costs. The app combines PAYE and ACC calculations with household assumptions; its results describe a modelled scenario rather than your actual spending history.
Highlights
- Compare nominal pay with estimated purchasing power
- Explore household profiles and cost breakdowns
- Save, copy, or print a pay comparison
In action
A pay rise has more than one number
A larger salary can coexist with less room in the household budget. The calculator puts nominal pay growth beside estimated changes in purchasing power, after tax and household inflation. Starting and current salaries remain visible beside the result so the comparison can be traced back to its inputs.
Choose a starting year and household profile, or explore an example. The output translates the change into annual and weekly amounts and an estimate of the gross pay needed to keep pace. An everyday comparison in blocks of cheese makes the same result more tangible.
Make the household assumptions visible
Household costs do not move evenly. The interface separates housing, groceries, rates and insurance, other essential bills, and tax bracket creep in its receipt-style breakdown. The household selector makes the scenario part of the calculation rather than hiding it behind a single national headline.
The result explains that it uses PAYE, ACC, and household inflation scaled to the selected profile. These are representative estimates. The model does not know a visitor’s actual mortgage, shopping receipts, or personal expense history.
A result you can take away
The pay comparison is presented as a compact receipt with its inputs, household profile, and estimated outcome together. Save it as an image, copy the text, or print it to keep the scenario available outside the calculator.
The wider site includes a New Zealand price ticker and views for exploring prices and nominal amounts. The public app is available at inflation.reb.run. This page documents that current interface separately from the earlier unfinished Inflation Ticker experiment.