Self-Sufficiency Standard: Estimates for Hawaii 2014

From DBEDT, January 12, 2016 (excerpt)

…Consistent with the Family Self-Sufficiency Study (FESS) methodology, this study defines economic self-sufficiency as the amount of money that individuals and families require to meet their basic needs without government and/or other subsidies. Also consistent with FESS, it is assumed that adults are working full-time (40-hour a week), with one or more jobs.

This study establishes Hawaii’s self-sufficient family income standards for 2014 and compares self-sufficient family budgets with poverty thresholds, minimum wage level, median family income, and estimates for 2014 actual incomes for the five family types.

Major highlights of the study are that: 

Among all five family types, Hawaii County had the lowest self-sufficiency income requirements, and Kauai had the highest income requirements among all counties. For the single-adult and two adult couples, Maui had the second highest self-sufficiency income requirements, followed by Honolulu. For the three types of families with children, following Kauai, Honolulu had the second highest self-sufficiency income requirements and these were followed by Maui. 

The 2014 median income for families of single-adult, two-adult couple families without children, and two-adult couple families with two children exceeded self-sufficiency income needs. Median income for other family types were not available due to insufficient sample sizes. 

Statewide, about 18.5% of two-adult couples with no children and 45.5% of two-adult couples with two children had incomes below the self-sufficiency standard in 2014. For single-adult families 45.3% had incomes in 2014 below the self-sufficiency level….

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