Labor Chair Onishi and House leadership are about to let SB2018 die without a hearing in the House, demonstrating a carelessness toward tens of thousands of struggling Hawaiʻi workers.

HONOLULU, Hawaiʻi — State House Committee on Labor and Tourism Chair Richard Onishi must schedule SB2018, the Senate minimum wage proposal, for a hearing by this afternoon, or the bill will die automatically without a single hearing in the legislature’s lower chamber.

SB2018 would raise the minimum wage to $18 by 2026, providing a badly-needed boost to the incomes of Hawaiʻi’s low-wage workers, many of whom are barely scraping by while working two and even three jobs. This 78 percent wage increase would mean approximately $16,000 more in annual pay for workers currently making the minimum wage which, at full-time, 40 hours per week, amounts to just $21,000 a year.

While the House proposal, HB2510, is expected to pass the Senate Committee on Labor, Culture, and the Arts this afternoon in an amended form, by refusing to give SB2018 a hearing, State House leadership is not only denying the public an opportunity to share manaʻo with State Representatives on this bill, it is also risking passage of a minimum wage policy by eliminating one of the only two remaining vehicles left alive for delivering on the promise of providing economic relief to the working class of Hawaiʻi.

“If SB2018 dies today, the House proposal will become the only remaining option to raise the wage,” said Christy MacPherson, Lead Community Developer for Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law, Law & Economic Justice. “Every day I meet low-wage workers who tell me how impossible it is for them to survive here, some working 18-hour days at three part-time jobs. This kind of political gamesmanship risks the health and economic security of real people who are suffering every day; it’s unacceptable.”

“House leadership is sending a clear signal that they would rather risk the successful passage of any minimum wage proposal, than let one pass that begins with ‘Senate Bill,’” said Gary Hooser, a former State Senate Majority Leader and current director of the Pono Hawaiʻi Initiative. “Legislators should care more about helping the people than they do about promoting themselves during an election season.”

“By allowing SB2018 to die without so much as a hearing, the State House is denying the public a critical opportunity to participate in the legislative process,” said Lesley Harvey, Economic Justice Action Committee Chair of Young Progressives Demanding Action. “The Senate proposal has strong support among the public as evidenced by testimony and recent polling, but the public has not had an opportunity to share with the State House why it prefers the $18 by 2026 timeline. The least the House Labor committee could do would be to give us that opportunity, even if they decided to amend the language afterward.”

The Raise Up Hawaiʻi coalition, consisting of dozens of nonprofits, community organizations, labor unions and small businesses is determined to see a strong minimum wage proposal pass this session. Hawaiʻi’s working families have suffered for years under stagnant wages while the consumer-driven economy has stalled as a result.

Our policy recommendations are data- and evidence-driven and show, unequivocally, that an$18 by 2026 minimum wage policy would not only be life-changing for tens of thousands of Hawaiʻi workers and their families, it would also boost economic output without adverse effects to businesses and without raising consumer prices beyond a minor 1 to 3 percent range.

In past testimony, the overwhelming number of testifiers—both individual and organizational—supported an $18 by 2026 timeline. That’s true of testimony for both SB2018 and HB2510 in every hearing either bill has gone through.

A recent (March 15) Star-Advertiser subscriber poll showed that 55 percent of subscribers support $18 by 2026 or an even more aggressive minimum wage increase. And even the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaiʻi’s own business survey reported that the largest segment of business owners surveyed (34 percent) actually prefers the Senate proposal of $18 by 2026 compared to either the House proposal of $18 by 2028 or the Chamber’s proposal to cap the minimum wage at $15 an hour.

For more information, visit www.raiseuphawaii.org