In its testimony in favor of a wage increase, a group called Living Wage Hawaii used Hawaiʻi Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism statistics to show that “a single childless adult requires approximately $35,000 annually, or $17 per hour to be able to afford their basic necessities working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year.”

Meantime, as the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice put it in its testimony in favor of a wage hike, “You’d think that with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, our workers would’ve seen big raises over the past few years. Yet we have the lowest average wage in the nation, when you adjust for our cost of living. Something’s out of balance. There’s a lot of evidence that it’s not just our prices, but also our low wages.”

Hawaiʻi lawmakers and the governor have an opportunity to put things back into balance for low-wage workers. They can do so by finding ways to help businesses, including a gradual increase in the minimum wage.