Why are median earnings for teenagers so low?

The median for 15 to 19 year olds was $13,410, which looks impossible against any wage. It is not an hourly rate: it is the median of total annual earnings for everyone in the band with any wage income at all, and most people in it worked a few hours a week for part of the year while studying. It measures how much was earned, not what work pays.

Is this data averages or medians?

Medians. Half of earners in a band received more than the figure and half less. A median is not pulled upward by a small number of very high earners the way an average is, which makes it the better yardstick for asking whether your own pay is typical.

Where do these figures come from?

Stats NZ's Linked Employer-Employee Data, which is built from tax records rather than surveys, published for every tax year since 2000, split by age band, sex, region and income source. Because it comes from tax data it covers essentially everyone who earned, not a sample.

What Earnings Look Like Across a Career

Q: At what age do earnings peak in New Zealand?

In the 2024 tax year, median annual earnings from wages and salaries peaked in the 45 to 49 age band, at $74,520. The curve rises steeply through the twenties and early thirties, flattens through the forties and fifties, and falls after sixty as people reduce hours and begin to retire.

New Zealand has an unusually good answer to the question of what a working life pays, because Stats NZ links tax records from employers and employees into one dataset covering every tax year since 2000. Not a survey, not a sample: essentially everyone who earned, every year, for twenty-five years. This guide walks the shape of that data, because the shape is what most people get wrong about their own pay.

The headline shape is a curve. Median annual earnings from wages and salaries start very low in the teens, at $13,410 for 15 to 19 year olds in the 2024 tax year, rise steeply through the twenties, keep rising more slowly through the thirties, and peak in the 45 to 49 band at $74,520. From there the curve is nearly flat for two decades, then falls away after sixty as hours reduce and retirement begins.

Three warnings before reading anything off it, and they matter more than the figures. These are medians, so half of each band earned more and half less. They are annual totals from tax records, so anyone who worked part of the year, or part-time, is in the figure at whatever they actually received. And they are tax years, April to March, not calendar years.

The full table for every age band and every region is on the average salary page, and each region has its own page with its own curve.

The steep part: your twenties and early thirties

The fastest earnings growth of a working life happens in its first fifteen years. The jump between the teens and the early twenties is mostly a change in hours, from part-time and part-year work to full-time. The growth from the early twenties to the mid-thirties is the real thing: experience, qualifications finishing, job changes, and the compounding effect of each pay rise being calculated on the last one.

Two practical consequences fall out of the steep part. The first is that job changes matter most here. The years when the median is climbing fastest are the years when an individual move is most likely to carry a meaningful rise, and staying put through the whole climb usually means climbing slower than the median.

The second is that this is when a percentage matters most over a lifetime. A KiwiSaver contribution, a student loan repayment, a savings habit: anything set as a share of pay in the steep years grows with every rise for the rest of the curve. The person who sets an 8 per cent contribution at 25 and the person who sets it at 45 are making very different sized decisions with the same number.

The flat part, and what it actually means

From the late thirties to the late fifties the median barely moves. It is tempting to read that as stagnation, and for any one person it can be. But a flat median across a band is not the same as flat pay for the people in it. People move up within the band, others reduce hours for children or health, others change careers and restart lower. The median nets all of it out to roughly nothing.

The useful reading is this: past the mid-thirties, the market stops handing out rises for simply getting older. Growth after that point comes from something changing: a promotion, a specialisation, a move, more hours. If your pay has been flat for five years in this stretch, you are not falling behind the curve, because the curve itself is flat. Whether you are content with that is a different question, and it is a decision rather than a default.

The flat part is also the earning peak of the household, even as the individual median is flat, because it is when two flat incomes most often run alongside each other and ahead of the largest costs. The household spending guide shows the other side of those years.

Using the curve on your own pay

The honest way to use this data on yourself is a two-step comparison. First find your age band's median for your region, which is on your region's salary page. Then remember what the figure is: the median annual wage and salary earnings of everyone in the band with any such earnings at all, including part-timers and part-year workers.

If you work full-time and sit below your band's median, that is worth knowing, because full-timers are generally above it: the part-year and part-time earners in the band pull it down. If you sit above it, the comparison says less than it seems to, for the same reason.

What the curve is genuinely good for is direction and timing. It says when rises should be expected and pushed for, when they will not arrive by themselves, and what the last decade of a career tends to do. It is the background against which a pay conversation happens, not the number to take into one. For the conversation itself, the pay rise calculator turns any offer into its real after-tax value.

One more honest note: these are wage and salary figures. Self-employment income is measured separately in the same dataset and its median is far lower and far more scattered, which is a subject of its own.

Test Your Knowledge

Quiz on the earnings curve

1. What kind of figure is the earnings data in this guide built from?

Averages from a household survey

Medians from linked tax records covering essentially everyone who earned

Advertised salaries from job listings

Union-negotiated pay scales

2. Why is the median for 15 to 19 year olds so far below any full-time wage?

Because young workers are paid below the minimum wage

Because it is a median of total annual earnings, and most in the band worked a few hours a week for part of the year

Because the data excludes part-time work

Because student allowances are subtracted from it

3. When does the fastest earnings growth of a working life happen?

The twenties and early thirties

The forties, once experience peaks

The five years before retirement

It is roughly even across a career

4. The median is flat from the late thirties to the late fifties. What is the practical reading?

Pay is legally capped in those decades

Everyone's pay stops moving at 40

Rises stop arriving with age alone; growth after that point comes from a promotion, a specialisation, a move or more hours

The data is unreliable for older workers

5. You work full-time and earn exactly your age band's median. What does that most likely mean?

Your pay is exactly typical for a full-time worker your age

You are probably below the typical full-time earner, because part-time and part-year earners pull the median down

You are in the top half of all earners

Nothing at all can be read from it

6. Why does a percentage decision, like a KiwiSaver rate, matter most in the steep years?

Anything set as a share of pay early grows with every rise for the rest of the curve

Because contribution rates are locked once set

Because tax rates are lower when young

Because employers match more for younger staff

Frequently Asked Questions

At what age do earnings peak in New Zealand?

In the 2024 tax year the median peaked in the 45 to 49 band, at $74,520 a year from wages and salaries. The curve is close to flat either side of the peak for two decades.

Are these figures averages or medians?

Medians, from tax records. Half of each band earned more, half less. Averages would sit higher, pulled up by a small number of very large incomes.

Why do the figures look low against advertised salaries?

Because everyone with any wage income in the year is counted, including people who worked part-time or part of the year. An advertised salary describes a full-time job; this data describes what people actually received.

Do the figures include self-employment?

Not in the wage and salary series this guide uses. Self-employment income is measured separately in the same dataset, and its median is much lower and much more variable.