Hawaii voters overwhelmingly want to see the state’s minimum wage increased, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Hawaii Poll, whose results could influence whether local lawmakers make such a change this year.
Roughly 3 out of 4 residents, or 77%, support raising the minimum wage from the current $10.10 an hour. Nineteen percent oppose an increase and 4% are undecided.
The survey results show strong alignment on the basic issue between the general public and lawmakers in the state Senate who have already voted in favor of a bill to elevate Hawaii’s minimum wage.
However, much division exists among Hawaii Poll respondents over how high the increase should be.
Most who support an increase said they favor a hike that isn’t as high as what lawmakers have proposed.
The most popular higher minimum wage level in the poll results was $15 an hour, favored by 49% of those who said they support an increase. Twenty-one percent of supporters said they prefer $12 an hour.
Two bills pending at the Legislature — one passed Jan. 28 by the Senate in a 24-1 vote (Senate Bill 2018) and one not yet acted upon (House Bill 1771) — propose raising the minimum wage in increments to $18 by either 2026 or 2027.
An $18 hourly minimum wage was favored by 16% of Hawaii Poll respondents supportive of an increase, while 9% said they favor $20 an hour. Five percent of respondents who support an increase did not indicate a preference for how much.
The poll did not specify a time frame for an increase.
Aiea resident Chris Pew said the need to raise Hawaii’s minimum wage is obvious considering the scope of homelessness here and that many people work multiple jobs to survive.
“The cost of living is very high here,” he said. “Not everybody has eight-year (college) degrees.”
Pew supports an increase to $20 an hour and said his own finances wouldn’t benefit from a minimum wage increase because he is disabled.
Based on testimony submitted to the Legislature for SB 2018, opponents of a minimum wage hike largely represent business owner interests. They include the Hawaii Food Manufacturers Association and the National Federation of Independent Business.
The Hawaii Restaurant Association suggested incremental increases over five years to $15 an hour by the beginning of 2027.
Hawaii Poll results suggest that Democrats are the biggest supporters of a minimum wage hike, with 88% in favor, 9% opposed and 3% undecided.
The Republican voter response is evenly split at 48% for and against, and 4% undecided.
Among independent voters, 83% support an increase, 12% oppose such and 5% were undecided.
Dickson Dechoso of Mililani supports an increase to $18 an hour, which he imagines could indirectly lead to higher pay in his job as a mechanic who earns more than the minimum.
Dechoso said his main reason for supporting an increase is the struggle of others to make financial ends meet with lower wages in the face of Hawaii’s high cost of living, which often includes the highest prices in the nation for housing, food, electricity and other essentials.
“A lot of people have to work two or three jobs to make the mortgage or pay bills,” he said.
Home prices rising to record levels, and the cost of living in general, were a reason for 42% of Hawaii Poll respondents saying they or someone in their household considered moving away from Hawaii in 2021.
This response was higher among Oahu residents at 46%, compared with 38% on Kauai, 37% in Maui County and 31% on Hawaii island. It was also higher among younger people: 48% of those under the age of 50, compared with 37% of those 50 or older.
A higher share of poll respondents — 64% — reported adjusting their household spending and purchasing for essential items, such as groceries, because of higher prices.
According to the most recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation on Oahu rose 5.4% over the 12 months through November, including a 6.5% gain for food and a 33.7% spike for energy mainly tied to the price of gas.
Housing costs in the bureau’s report were up 4.1%, though home sale prices statewide have risen by double-digit percentages that pushed the median sale price for single-family homes on Oahu, Maui and Kauai to peaks of $1 million in multiple months in 2021.
Betty Jean Nativio, a 40-year Kauai resident who helps her husband run a business renting out Bobcat equipment, can relate to numerous facets of Hawaii’s cost of living.
At home she’s almost 18 months into a remodeling job being done slowly in pieces because of high costs for materials and labor, while some homeowners in the area are selling their properties for eye-popping prices.
“It’s pretty scary around here with houses selling for $1 million in Kilauea,” she said.
At the supermarket, Nativio has been shocked. “Food is ridiculous,” she said. “It can be $17 for two chicken breasts.”
On the need for higher wages, Nativio recalled meeting a woman recently whose third job is working at Walmart.
Hawaii’s minimum wage, Nativio said, needs to be increased and linked to inflation so that several years from now there doesn’t need to be jousting at the Legislature over whether to increase the minimum and by how much and over what period of time.
“I wish it would happen,” she said. “I hope and pray, because we are so far behind the times when it comes to wages.”
Nativio, Dechoso and Pew are among those surveyed in the Hawaii Poll, which included telephone interviews with 800 registered Hawaii voters and was conducted Jan. 24-28 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy of Washington, D.C. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
