Advocates urge larger minimum wage hike

At previous hearings in the House, the bill received significant opposition from business interests, but substantially more support from others. Supporters cited research that increases to minimum wages do not substantially harm businesses—often quite the contrary.

Meanwhile, supporters argued that even though wages have increased recently, the cost of living also has increased at a greater rate.

“Between 2015 and 2018, when the minimum wage in Hawaiʻi rose by 39 percent, our state’s unemployment rate dropped by 52 percent. And since the minimum wage started rising in 2015, there was an increase in restaurant server jobs of 22 percent,” wrote a spokesperson for the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice in February.

Scores of supporters wrote that the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism found that Honolulu workers would need to make $17 an hour to be self-sufficient in 2019, and requested that the bill be amended to instead raise the wages to $17 an hour for uninsured employees and $14 for insured employees.

“A parent who can afford child care, a teacher who can focus on the children in the classroom instead of worrying about rushing to a second job—that’s what a living wage will help deliver,” said Big Island resident Jennifer Kagiwada in a statement.