Retiring renters facing disaster without intervention
Adrian Black |
Australian renters need roughly twice as much superannuation as homeowners to retire comfortably, and face a crisis without more government help.
Renters were at risk of a “retirement disaster” without government intervention, Super Consumers Australia boss Xavier O’Halloran said.
“Telling renters to simply ‘save more’ isn’t the solution to this problem,” he said.
“Renters are at a real risk of retirement disaster if the government doesn’t act.”
The organisation’s 2026 Retirement Savings Targets for Renters report, published on Tuesday, found more than 325,000 age pensioners were receiving Commonwealth Rent Assistance in June 2025.
Almost one in three of those were still in rental stress – spending more than a third of their income on rent – after rental assistance had been paid.
A typical single renting retiree would need $659,000 in super, compared to $322,000 for a retiree who owned their home, according to the report, which is based on Australian Bureau of Statistics spending data.
Couples needed $786,000 combined in super compared to $432,000 for an equivalent homeowner couple.
While long-term solutions centred on getting more people into affordable housing, renting retirees needed help now, Mr O’Halloran said.
“We’ve got a crisis facing retirees right now – Commonwealth rent assistance has not kept pace with actual rents,” he said.
Super Consumers Australia wants the federal government to address rental assistance as a matter of urgency.
“Every day this isn’t addressed, renters face an impossible financial challenge in retirement,” Mr O’Halloran said.
Super Consumers Australia has called on superannuation funds to provide better tools for members to understand their retirement savings and targets.
Wealth manager AMP on Tuesday released a platform for users to measure their super fund’s performance, fees and other metrics against competitors, based on third-party data from SuperRatings.
“There are some funds that are still trading on yesterday’s reputation,” AMP’s superannuation group executive Melinda Howes told AAP.
Some funds had spent a lot of money marketing themselves as the top performers, when it was no longer the case, she said.
“There’s a long-held belief out there that industry funds are always cheaper and perform better than retail funds, and we expect that this tool will challenge and help dispel that myth,” Ms Howes said.
The tool allows users to compare fund returns over the past year, three years or five years, as well as insurance costs and other fees, digital offerings and social environmental governance.
Ms Howes hoped the tool would help the roughly one in two Australians who were unconfident about their retirement to better engage with their superannuation.
“Transparency drives competition and lifts standards across the industry and highlights the funds that are genuinely delivering for their members,” she said.
AAP
