Town Square: debt and taxes
With Hawaiʻi’s cost of living and many families and low-income individuals living paycheck to paycheck can policies be restructured to provide fairness to all?
How to achieve economic justice under the new administration
Victor Geminiani joins Maryann Sasaki on Life in the Law to discuss methods for achieving social justice under the new administration.
New Honolulu housing aims to help artists
A publicly funded affordable housing complex in Kakaʻako will offer low-cost units to artists.
Bills to raise Hawaiʻi’s minimum wage are non-starters
A measure to establish a $15 per hour wage by 2021 did not get a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Change in school lunch policy urged after kids denied meals
There have been times in the past where a student’s balance on their school lunch account has hit zero and the student’s lunch was taken away from them just as they sat down to eat it.
Illegal vacation rentals harming community
In tight housing markets with low vacancy rates, any reduction in supply naturally increases rents, particularly because neither the market nor the public sector can quickly add to housing stock.
The Hawaiʻi Tax Fairness Initiative and SB648
Roger Epstein and Gavin Thornton visit Community Matters with Jay Fidell to talk about Tax Fairness and the work being done by the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice on SB648 to help the working poor with working family, renters and food credits.
Working Family Tax Credit rewards hard work for low pay
We all agree self-sufficiency is better than merely depending on handouts. We all agree that a willingness to work should be encouraged. Let’s further both by passing, this legislative session, the Working Family Tax Credit.
House lawmakers debate bills to make it easier to evict people
Housing Committee Chairman Tom Brower says he hasn't decided about measures to amend the landlord-tenant code.
Hawaiʻi Can: Episode 33 Moving Forward in 2017
AiKea Movement interviews Hawaiʻi Appleseed’s Nicole Woo and UNITE HERE! Local 5’s Paola Rodelas about upcoming people first advocacy efforts in the 2017 legislative session and beyond in the wake of the election of Donald Trump as president.
Property values soar, depleting lower-cost options
Clearly, there’s a gap in what the housing market alone will provide. And time is running out for government to build bridges.
Close gap between low wages, housing
Given that Hawaiʻi has the highest cost of living in the nation, in real terms we pay our workers the lowest wages compared to any other state.
Trump immigration ideas worry Hawaiʻi families
It’s estimated that undocumented immigrants in Hawaiʻi contribute about $30 million in state and local tax revenue
Shifting salaries
Federal overtime rules were established to protect employees from being asked to work long hours without pay, yet low-wage workers doing managerial, administrative or professional duties as salaried employees could be taken advantage of by a loophole in the overtime requirement.
Advocates weigh whether property tax increase could help house homeless
Instead of an across-the-board tax hike to address homelessness, Appleseed suggests raising fees for non-residents with second homes in the islands.
Panel focuses on ways to address homeless issues
If the Maui County law is passed and a homeless person gets thrown in jail, it just becomes a very expensive way to house someone who is homeless.
Isle incomes increase along with home costs
Hawaiʻi incomes are on the rise, but so is the state’s cost of living and especially the housing costs, which remain the highest in the country.
Census data ranks Hawaiʻi 9th highest for poverty
When you figure in the cost of living, Hawaiʻi’s poverty rate skyrockets from 11 percent of the population to nearly 17 percent, or 1 in 6 residents.
Many remain unemployed despite lots of job openings
The Appleseed report provides a broader vision on how to break the downward cycle: get more money into the hands of poor people, because they usually live so close to the financial edge that the smallest problem can lead to a crisis.