A pandemic’s economic disruption, inflation and unrelentingly high housing costs have dealt a blow to all Hawaii residents. But it’s been an especially rough road for those on the lower rungs of the income ladder, which is why the Legislature, rightly, is training its focus on lightening the financial burden on the working poor.

The legislative session last week entered the conference-committee phase, in which panels representing both Senate and House members put the surviving bills through a gauntlet to hammer out their differences. The committee meetings are public, but no further testimony will be taken. The surviving bills that have no spending element and those that do must emerge from committee in final form, respectively, Thursday and Friday.

The 240 bills originating in the House and the 200 Senate bills include two that advocates for lower-income households favor: House Bill 954 and HB 1049, vehicles for targeted tax reform.

The Senate draft of HB 954 would make a cost of living adjustment to individual income tax brackets that benefits all taxpayers, but ensures most critically that lower-income taxpayers aren’t penalized when they get a COLA adjustment. HB 1049 enhances the earned income tax credit (EITC), designed to help working families living at or slightly above the federal poverty line.

Will White is director of the Hawai‘i Budget &Policy Center, a program of the nonprofit Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law &Economic Justice. He said on Friday that he is encouraged at these bills’ progress.

In particular, White said, he was pleasantly surprised when the Senate Committee on Ways and Means doubled the amount of the EITC from 20% of the federal earned-income credit to 40%. The initial proposal by Gov. Josh Green would have boosted the EITC, too, but to 30%.

“If we were to secure a 40% tax credit, Hawaii would have one of the strongest EITC provisions in the nation,” he said, behind only California, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

The Senate also increased the income thresholds and amounts of the refundable general excise tax credit for food expenses, White said. This also will help poorer residents, for whom food costs amount to a large share of their household budgets.

State Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz, Senate Ways and Means chair, said if the House accepts the Senate draft without amendment, it could be sent directly to the governor’s desk.

However, state Rep. Scott Saiki, House speaker, would not make such a prediction last week. Debate on budget bills, weighing how much revenue the state can sacrifice, will be necessary because of changed fiscal conditions.

On March 7, for example, the state Council on Revenues lowered its forecast for revenue growth for the current fiscal year from 5.5% to 2%, and from 5% to 4% for fiscal year 2024, which means less for tax coffers.

And spending is headed up too, Saiki said: Last week’s settlement of the Hawaii State Teachers Association contract will mean higher labor costs.

So tax relief must be weighed in this uncertain context. Some of the proposals floated at the start of the session — a low-income renters credit, for example — are no longer on the view screen.

That said, the proposals that remain on the table, including the tax-bracket fixes of HB 954, offer the best “bang for the buck” in the tax code, providing some relief across the board but mostly to those who need it most.

Here are just a few of the many other unresolved issues at this point in the session:

>> The budget could include additional funds for infrastructure supporting development around the planned replacement Aloha Stadium. Capital improvements would be an optimal recipient of the current revenue surplus.

However, there may be less give in the state budget than leaders anticipated. Setting aside some funds to support the larger Halawa redevelopment could be considered, but the priority should be on using what’s already allocated for the stadium itself, as the governor proposed.

>> No funds should be allotted for the massive “first responders” campus that some envision in Central Oahu.

Until there is a clearer justification for the project, which is not even backed by some of the agencies it’s meant to house, this would be money foolishly spent. That is especially true in a state in which more essential expenditures, such as fixing the roof of the Hawaii Convention Center, are ignored.

>> And where the visitor industry is concerned, HB 1375 and SB 1522, which would replace the Hawaii Tourism Authority with a new “destination management” agency, should be shelved.

HTA already has embraced the idea that moderating the impact of tourism on Hawaii’s natural resources is core to its mission. Last week, its leaders made the case that dismantling the authority could endanger federal funds granted to HTA specifically.

That persuasive argument should prevail over a plan that offers no clear benefits to the industry or the state it supports.