As of January 1, 2007 Hawaii's minimum wage was raised to $7.25 an hour, from its previous standpoint at $6.75 an hour. Now, some people would say that this would solve the poverty in Hawaii, but this is not the case. Although Hawaii is number eight of all states for highest minimum wage, the cost of living in Hawaii is so steep that the minimum wage won' t be able to support families. The living wage in Hawaii is set around $9.43. This means that in order for a family to live above the poverty line in Hawaii, a wage of $9.43 per hour must be paid. The majority of the working class has to deal with the $7.25 an hour, and the problems that come with such a small paycheck and such high living costs.
The problem that Hawaii's workers and families face is that minimum wage cannot support a family of four. It will for a while, but eventually the family will be forced into poverty. Because it cannot support a family, many mothers and fathers are taking two or three jobs a piece just to take care of their family and to provide a suitable future for their kids. Minimum wage cannot support a family, it's a simple as that.
One reason for the expensive living in Hawaii is the housing prices, most houses that cost a million dollars here would only cost about 200-500 thousand on the mainland. These ridiculous housing prices really hike up the cost of living in Hawaii, and in turn, cause many families to struggle greatly. Also, because all of our goods have to be imported in, the costs of all those goods has to be raised. That's why buying local produced goods is sometimes a better choice than buying imported goods from the mainland or elsewhere.
Government intervention has helped the problem of minimum and living wage. They have raised the minimum wage of Hawaii a lot over the past few years, most recently from $6.75 to $7.25 in last January. But that is not enough. The government has to realize that the cost of living in Hawaii is extremely high, and in turn, they need to raise the minimum wage to meet that cost of living. The downside of increasing the wage is that small, local businesses sometimes won't be able to pay their workers it, so they will have to downsize some employees or even shut down business. The cartoon above illustrates this problem. The local population can also help reduce the gap between minimum wage and the cost of living per hour. If people bought more local produced goods, we could help keep our local economy running at an optimal level, and also keep money circulated within our state. This would slightly reduce the costs of goods here, but only the goods that are made here. Also, more jobs would be created locally, thus helping the economy even more.
The minimum wage and cost of living gap affects almost everyone, however the people it affects the most are the minimum wage families with one, two, or even more children. These families struggle a lot because their minimum wage paychecks cannot pay all of the bills and costs of living. If the families have two or more kids, then the problem becomes even more magnified. These families are typically between the age of 25-45, the most difficult years for any family because of kids and the costs that come with them, especially college. Something needs to be done locally, if its not by the population of Hawaii, then it has to be by the government.
Cartoon from http://www.conservativecartoons.com/1996/minwage.gif
3 comments:
This summer, while searching for a job, I found that many places such as Teddy's Bigger Burger in Waikiki were paying irregularly high wages (such as $12/hour) because they were having a difficult time attracting workers. This situation illustrates the fact that when unemployment is low, wages generally increase due to a lack of labor supply. Therefore, creating jobs and decreasing poverty all contribute to the increase of wages. We should work to decrease unemployment and in doing so, create jobs with higher wages.
Oh, it's Keely Schneider
I get paid just above minimum wage, and I have a very menial job. I have been able to save some money, but sometimes I think about what if I had to pay for my cell phone bill, and the water bill, and electricity, and rent, and for all of my food, and I would have absolutely no money. There has to be someway of evening out the living wage and minimum wage because I huge number of problems could be solved by doing that. It could strengthen the economy, and alliviate social problems.
-Alana
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