Hawaiʻi tax reform could increase healthcare affordability, experts say

The Hawaiʻi Budget & Policy Center (HBPC) is calling for lawmakers to pass tax reform that would address racial and socioeconomic disparities across the state.

Healthcare costs in Hawaiʻi are unevenly distributed between low and high wage earners. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the bottom 10 percent of wage earners in the state spend 8.4 percent of their income on healthcare, compared to 6.6 percent of the wealthiest 10 percent. For spending on social determinants of health such as food and housing, the disparities are even higher.

Devin Thomas, an AmeriCorps VISTA policy analyst and author of the HBPC analysis, wrote that a lack of data on racial and ethnic disparities within the state’s tax structure poses a barrier to economic equity.

Unfortunately, in Hawaiʻi, there is a glaring absence of ethnically disaggregated tax data for Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders, and other people of color. This data is crucial to determining the needs of certain ethnic groups, as well as the amount of government investment required to meet these needs.