The “price of paradise” has driven many Hawaii families to pick up stakes and move to a more affordable community. So it follows logically that the ones who remain are likely dealing with quite a struggle to make ends meet.
That, according to the latest annual Kids Count Data Book report, is playing out in a deteriorating set of realities for island keiki. Hawaii has sunk from 35th to 44th place among the 50 states in the measure of the economic well-being for children.
That statistic, disheartening as it is to see, should surprise hardly anyone living in Hawaii for any length of time. Children whose families can barely afford the basics of rent and food are off to a difficult start on their lives. “Economic well-being”? Not within easy reach for them.
The report comes from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private philanthropic organization based in Baltimore. The foundation outlines in startling terms where the problems lie.
Among the most challenging costs is child care. On average, the annual cost for a toddler receiving care at a center was $13,919. That’s 12% of the median income of a married couple — and more than one-third the median pay for single mothers.
There is some hope to derive from the current movement to expand the capacity of pre-kindergarten programs. Ready Keiki, a program for which the state has appropriated $200 million, is ahead of schedule. The first 11 of planned additional preschool classrooms will open for use in the coming school year; construction initially had been slated to start in 2024.
But it’s also easy, if painful, to note where the policy goals must be advanced to make things better here. Principally, that will require the encouragement of affordable housing, better-paying jobs and social outreach especially to adolescents at risk of falling through the cracks.
The reasons for Hawaii dropping nine spots in the yearly ranking, according to the Kids Count summary for Hawaii:
>> Hawaii ranked 49th among states for livable housing costs, because of the number of children living in households that spend more than 30% of income on housing. About 39% fell well outside that economic margin of safety.
>> The foundation calculated that 10% of youths ages 16-19 were neither attending school nor working, a metric of adrift teens that, when applied nationally, put Hawaii in 44th place.
>> This is an economy with a lot of low-paying, service-industry jobs. Fully 31% of Hawaii children in 2021, lived in homes where no parent was fully employed, placing the state 37th in the nation.
>> There is a lot of work to be done for families in the greatest need. Even if Hawaii’s 14% of children living below the poverty line gives the state an above-average ranking of 18th in the nation, the poverty line is drawn without factoring in the state’s high cost of living.
And, of course, that’s getting worse. A recent report by Aloha United Way put the annual “household survival budget” for a family of four here at $104,052, up 15% from 2018.
About 41% of households in Hawaii in 2021 had income below the ALICE threshold. The term (an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) defines households scarcely covering essential expenses even with income above the poverty line.
Again, policymakers are putting some energy behind growing the inventory of affordable housing, but not nearly enough to meet the challenge. One pointed example: the new condo high-rise in Moiliili that will displace low-income housing, but with the offered aid to current residents falling short of even replacing an equal number of units at their income level.
If Hawaii wants to do better than this pathetic No. 44 ranking, its leaders will have to put keiki — and their families — No. 1.
