Bill to raise Hawaiʻi's minimum wage to $18 by 2028 passes out of conference committee

Hawaiʻi Appleseed executive director Gavin Thornton said this is a historic moment and a “huge leap” in making Hawaiʻi’s wage livable.

“To make ends meet, someone would need to earn over $19 an hour,” Thornton said. “Currently, the minimum wage is $10.10; boosting it to $18, stepping up over the next few years, isn’t going to get us all the way to paying people a living wage, but it's going to get a heck of a lot closer.”

Thornton said that a raised wage would have a ripple effect on the economy.

“A minimum wage like this is going to have a dramatic impact for Hawaiʻi’s working families and for the economy that they drive and support,” the advocacy group’s leader said. “These are the folks that the money that they earn is money that they spend in the local economy to pay their bills to buy necessities. So it’s really important that we’re ensuring that these folks are paid a fair wage.”

The bill also makes the earned income tax credit permanent and refundable.