The results of a new survey show that almost half of middle-income workers are unsure if they will have to leave Hawaiʻi to go to a less expensive state.
Holomua Collective, a nonprofit focused on affordability issues in Hawaiʻi, asked over 3,000 local workers about cost-of-living issues.
Another 30% of respondents were sure they would have to move somewhere more affordable.
The survey focuses on middle-income households, most of which make above $100,000 a year in a three-person household.
“I think if you mentioned that kind of a salary to a lot of people, they'd think, well, those folks are probably fine, but you find out actually that this cost of living crisis, this affordability crisis we have is really extending to everybody,” said Holomua Collective Executive Director Josh Wisch.
This is the second time Holomua Collective has done the survey, although this year the number of respondents nearly doubled. Compared to last year, the percentage of those who said they would be leaving in five years or less increased from 46% to 57%.
“That part is always especially jarring to me because if you just ask people, ‘Do you think you're going to need to move?’ And they say, ‘maybe,’ that's one thing. But if they say they're going to need to move within five years, then I think that's gone beyond just maybe,” Wisch said. “It shows a certain amount of planning.”
Another stark change from 2024’s survey to 2025 is that the salary at which the financial pressure to leave starts to ease is now $150,000; last year it was $100,000.
When asked what could change to keep them in Hawaiʻi, respondents’ top three answers were: for wages to match the cost of living, economic stability, and housing affordability.
However, almost half of the respondents also said they were unaware of workforce development programs in the state. Wisch sees that as an issue.
“A lot of the people who benefit from them aren't aware of those programs, even though they're out there,” he said. “I think we see both a need to get people together to actually increase trust, increase faith in institutions, and there’s a big communications gap of what those institutions are trying to do for the community and what people are actually seeing and feeling.”
Respondents were also asked if they had confidence in institutions like government, labor unions, public schools, businesses or nonprofits to do right by Hawaiʻi working families.
Nonprofits had the highest percentage of confidence at 54%, while government had the lowest at 20%.
Wisch said he hopes that the results of the survey will help drive policy decisions going forward, including Holomua Collaborative’s legislative package for 2026. Holomua Collaborative is an organization related to Holomua Collective that does policy and advocacy work.
“We had so many people writing in with: here's what would help, here's how we make ends meet, here's what needs to change,” he said.
“One of the things that tells us is that people are facing really challenging times, but they're also working really hard to find a ray of hope, and to find some sunshine and to find a way to stay here. And a key part is, we need to listen to them, and that's what we're trying to do.”
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