Advocates for a living wage will be asking our elected officials to deliver on their promises and pass a living wage bill in the 2021 legislative session. But we can’t do it without support from you.
It’s time to Raise Up Hawaiʻi
Every worker deserves a Living Wage.
All in Living Wage
Young people are continually told that we are the future, but we have no future here if the minimum wage doesn’t go up to $17 and also keep up with inflation in the coming years.
A 2016 statewide poll revealed that above 70 percent of Native Hawaiians live paycheck to paycheck. A third say they struggle to pay for food. This cannot continue.
As a young adult responsible for her living expenses in the most expensive state of the U.S., I know first-hand the challenges of barely getting by despite living very frugally.
As businesspeople we invite others to join us in doing the right thing and stop opposing giving workers what is their due: a just living wage. As lawmakers, we can do right by working families. If we have the will.
Mental health is not just the absence of mental illness but also living without the toxic levels of stress caused by factors such as poverty, abuse and unpaid family caregiving.
The current minimum wage in Hawaiʻi is $10.10 an hour, or $21,000 per year for full-time work. Everyone who lives here knows that’s not enough to make ends meet in the highest cost-of-living state in the nation.
I’ve spent 45 years in corporate America with operations in Hawaiʻi, and it’s mind-boggling to me that employers in Hawaiʻi put up resistance to increasing the minimum wage.
$15 an hour is not a living wage. It is the minimum for someone just hoping to live with dignity and independence.
The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is clear: $21,000 a year—that’s what full-time, minimum-wage workers make at $10.10 an hour—simply does not allow them to meet basic needs in high-cost Hawaiʻi. It is by no stretch of the imagination a living wage.
