Consumer spending is two-thirds of our economy. So when we scratch our heads about why Hawaiʻi’s GDP is not growing as fast as the rest of the country, the answer lies in how much money our residents have to spend. At $10.10 an hour, our low-income workers clearly do not have enough to buy food and pay rent—in short, be “self-sufficient.”

And given our high cost of living, Hawaiʻi has the highest average credit card debt per capita in the nation.

The state’s own Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) says that the “self-sufficiency” hourly rate in Hawaiʻi today would require wages of $17 an hour.

We task DBEDT to research and analyze wages relative to cost of living to help policy-makers understand the threshold of “self-sufficiency.” We should not ignore its findings or the evidence before our eyes—lying on the sidewalks of what is now the houseless capital of the nation.

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