SELF-SUFFICIENCY INCOME STANDARD

Estimates for Hawaii 2016

From DBEDT, December, 2017

I. Executive Summary Hawaii Revised Statutes, 201-3(b) requires that, beginning in 2008, DBEDT establish and update biennially a self-sufficiency standard incorporating existing methods of calculation, and reflecting costs relating to housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, clothing and household expenses, taxes, children's ages, geography, and the number of household wage earners. The first report was published in January 2009 and the second report in December 2011, the third report in December 2012, the fourth report in December 2014, and the fifth report in December 2015. These reports can be accessed at “self-sufficiency-income-study”. This report is an update on the performance of Hawaii’s self-sufficiency standard.

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 2016 and compares self-sufficient family budgets with poverty thresholds, minimum wage level, median family income, and estimates for 2016 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 among all counties. For the single-adult and two-adult couple categories, Kauai had the highest self-sufficiency income requirements, followed by Maui. For the one-adult with one child and one adult with two children categories, Honolulu had the highest self-sufficiency income requirements, followed by Maui. For the two-adult couples with two children category, Maui had the highest self-sufficiency income requirements, followed by Honolulu.

• The 2016 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 21.5% of two-adult couples with no children and 31.7% of two-adult couples with two children had incomes below the self-sufficiency standard in 2016. For single-adult with no children and single-adult with one child, 44.1% and 50.8% had incomes in 2016 below the self-sufficiency level, respectively.

Total budget levels by family size are summarized by county in Table A and displayed in Figure A. Appendix B provides comparisons between the results of this update study and past studies, including the 2007 DBEDT results.

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HNN: 31% of Hawaii families don't earn enough to cover basic needs: study