Everyone knows life got harder after COVID. Here's the number that shows exactly how: New Zealand added 2.3 million new income sources between 2020 and 2024.

That's not because we suddenly had 2.3 million more people. The population grew by maybe 200,000 over that period. This is something else entirely.

In 2020, there were 30.4 million taxable income sources across the country. By 2024, that figure hit 32.7 million. (Source: Stats NZ, taxable-income-sources)

Think about what an "income source" actually means. It's a wage. A rental property. A side hustle registered with IRD. Freelance income. Investment returns. Each one represents a separate stream of money flowing to someone, somewhere in New Zealand.

The trajectory tells the story. From 2000 to 2019, income sources grew steadily but unremarkably, tracking population and economic expansion. Then COVID hit, and the pattern broke. Between 2020 and 2021, the count barely moved. Lockdowns froze the economy in place.

But then came the scramble. From 2021 to 2022: up 380,000 sources. From 2022 to 2023: up 950,000. From 2023 to 2024: up another million.

This isn't prosperity. This is adaptation. When your rent goes up 20 per cent and your grocery bill climbs $60 a week, you find another income stream. You rent out the sleepout. You drive for Uber on weekends. You sell things online. You turn a hobby into taxable income because you have to.

The data doesn't tell us which sources exploded, but the timing tells us enough. The cost-of-living crisis didn't just make things expensive. It fractured how New Zealand earns money. A single job used to be enough for most households. Now it increasingly isn't.

We crossed seven million sources per million people in 2023. That ratio keeps climbing. Every Kiwi now represents more than six income sources on average. Some of those belong to landlords with multiple properties. Some belong to retirees juggling part-time work and KiwiSaver withdrawals. Some belong to families where both parents work, plus a side gig, plus rental income from a flatmate.

The question isn't whether New Zealanders are working harder. The data already answered that. The question is what happens when a single income source stops being viable for most households. We're finding out in real time.