A clash of wills and phi­losophies among state lawmakers over how to raise Hawaii’s minimum wage now appears centered on one bill at the Legislature instead of two.

The Senate Committee on Labor, Culture and the Arts on Monday amended a bill first introduced and passed in the House so that the measure now closely resembles the Senate’s minimum wage bill calling for a shorter and quicker acceleration in the hourly minimum to $18 from the current $10.10.

Meanwhile, it looks as though House leaders don’t intend to keep the Senate minimum wage bill in play, by letting a procedural deadline today for advancing the bill lapse.

As has been the case for both minimum wage bills earlier, a ton of public testimony was submitted for Monday’s hearing: 190 pages of written comments.

Generally, advocates for low-wage workers prefer the faster track backed by senators, while employers and industry representatives find the House goal more palatable.

“The bottom line is we simply cannot go on paying people who are working 40 hours a week less than what they need to afford the very basics—food and shelter,” Gavin Thornton, executive director of the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, said at Monday’s hearing.

At the current minimum wage, a full-time worker would earn $21,008 a year.

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Thornton continued. “We can’t do it anymore. We can’t just maybe snap our fingers and switch it right away, but what we can do is provide an immediate significant increase followed by multiple increases afterwards to get that minimum wage closer to a real living wage. It’s not going to get us all the way there, but it’s super important that we move and move quickly. People have been waiting for four years since the last bump, (and there’s been) huge inflation since then.”