Hawaiʻi income stats climb, but so does the cost of living

For a different view, the Census Bureau offers the annual Supplemental Poverty Measure, which was released in a separate report last week.

“It’s much more accurate way to look at poverty,” said Nicole Woo, senior policy analyst with the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice in Honolulu.

Woo said the supplementary measure, first calculated a couple of decades ago, factors in a variety of pertinent items such as the earned income tax credit and food stamp benefits. It also takes into account housing costs, which is a huge deal in Hawaiʻi, she said.

So while the official poverty rate average from 2015-2017 appears to make Hawaiʻi shine with the 10th lowest rate among the states, the supplemental measure flips the number, giving Hawaiʻi the 10th highest rate. The supplemental measure is only broken out for a three-year period, and not just for 2017.

And while the official rate represents some 142,000 residents who cannot make ends meet, the supplemental figure boosts that figure to 210,000, a 47 percent increase that was the third-largest jump in the nation when comparing the two rates, Woo said.

The higher number, she said, is closer to a truer depiction of the struggles people experience every day in the Aloha State.

Woo said the official rate is similar to Hawaiʻi’s historically low employment rate, which hides the fact that thousands of adults in Hawaiʻi have little time to spend with their families because they are working multiple jobs.