A bill that would almost double Hawaii’s minimum wage — incrementally increasing it to $18 per hour by Jan. 1, 2026 — has broken quickly out of the gate at the start of this year’s legislative session.
Senate Bill 2018, introduced by Senate Labor, Culture and the Arts Chairman Brian Taniguchi, an Oahu Democrat, passed unanimously on a 5-0 vote without amendments Monday in Taniguchi’s committee, which recommended passage on a second reading by the full Senate.
If passed as is, the legislation would hike the minimum wage from $10.10 per hour to $12 an hour on Oct. 1, and to $15 hourly on Jan. 1, 2024, before the final jump to $18 two years later.
The measure is scheduled for a hearing at 10:45 a.m. Thursday by the Ways and Means Committee, the bill’s only other Senate committee referral prior to a third vote necessary for it to be forwarded to the House of Representatives.
All four of the Big Island’s state senators — Laura Acasio, Lorraine Inouye, Dru Kanuha and Joy San Buenaventura, all Democrats — have signed on to the legislation.
Inouye, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said she thinks “the time is now” to enact a hike in the minimum wage.
“These are tough times, and not only with the pandemic,” Inouye told the Tribune-Herald on Tuesday. “There’s another thing to this equation, though. You know, we’re having a very difficult time with businesses having their employees return to work. And so, I hope with a wage increase, people will go back to work.”
Act 82, passed in 2014, incrementally increased the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour over the course of four consecutive years, 2015 to 2018.
According to written testimony in favor of the measure by Anne Perreira-Eustaquio, director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, “22 states and the District of Columbia currently have minimum wage rates higher than Hawaii.”
Gov. David Ige, who also supports the measure, noted in written testimony he raised the minimum wage for state workers, except for interns and seasonal temporary hires.
“Twenty-five states are raising their minimum wage this year, and I hope that we can be the 26th to support our working individuals and families, especially with our improved economic outlook,” Ige wrote.
As expected, the legislation has strong union support, including Hawaii Government Employees Association, United Public Workers, Hawaii State Teachers Association, UNITE HERE Local 5, and International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 1 of Hawaii.
It’s also backed by the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, Americans for Democratic Action, Living Wage Hawaii, Common Cause Hawaii, St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Kailua-Kona, and HOPE Services Hawaii.
Living Wage Hawaii testified Hawaii’s minimum wage “falls short.”
“While more than $18 per hour was needed for full-time workers to afford their basic needs in 2020, Hawaii’s minimum wage is only $10.10 per hour. More than 150,000 full-time workers in Hawaii earn less than $35,000 per year, while more than $38,000 is needed to make ends meet,” the group said.
“I agree with Living Wage Hawaii,” Acasio told the Tribune-Herald. “Right now, the timeline that’s proposed within the bill represents a really good pace at a good time. Raising the minimum wage is a strong first step in building the local economy. It’s on us, then, as consumers to support local and support our small businesses.”
Groups submitting testimony in opposition to the bill include: Chamber of Commerce Hawaii, Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii Food Manufacturers Association, Hawaii Restaurant Association, National Federation of Independent Business, Aloha Hula Supply, Hawaiian Chip Company, Envisions Entertainment and Productions, and the Honolulu County Republican Party.
Wendy Laros, president and CEO of Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce, said the wage hikes contained in the measure “are simply too much too soon.”
“In four short years, this legislation calls for an 80% increase to $18 per hour! This timeline is not reasonable,” Laros testified. “Businesses are struggling with multiple issues now and into the foreseeable future due to the lingering pandemic, labor shortages at all levels, increased costs, and supply chain disruptions.
“For those businesses that do pay minimum wage, this hike would be disastrous.”
Saying she appreciates “that legislators aim to address Hawaii’s high cost of living,” Laros suggested “an alternative approach such as finding ways to increase the inventory of affordable workforce housing.”
Others who submitted testimony supported that approach, as well as other ways of decreasing living expenses, such as exempting food and medications from the state’s sales tax.
Some, such as the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and the Hawaii Restaurant Association, proposed in their testimony smaller increases to the minimum wage over a longer time period — with HRA proposing incremental increases to top out at $15 per hour on Jan. 1, 2027.
Kanuha, who was elected to the Senate in 2018 and, like Inouye, sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said a minimum wage increase “has been a Senate-wide priority since I came into the Legislature.”
“I don’t see much change happening in the Senate,” Kanuha told the Tribune-herald. “We’ll see what happens if it passes over to the House, and they can determine … whether that’s an appropriate wage increase.”
Kanuha described the issue as “a difficult thing to handle for people, both personal and business-wise.”
“We live in an increasingly high-priced world, especially here in Hawaii,” he said. “… It’s been a long time since Hawaii has increased the minimum. And by doing it in this tiered fashion, hopefully it won’t cause too much of an issue for our businesses.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.