Cost of Living

... why have prices spiked over the past half-century? ....

... UHERO released the first edition of an annual report on the state of housing called “The Hawaiʻi Housing Factbook” ....

... all the different layers of taxation on production and distribution make up about 40 percent of the retail price for beer ....

... some Hawaii lawmakers have been looking at the so-called Vienna model of housing as a way to help resolve Hawaii's housing crisis ....

... the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation expects the additional benefit of reduced demand for overnight and multiple-day parking ....

... "We are working with our colleagues, possibly in the next couple of weeks, you will see this housing declaration of emergency, similarly to address some of the bottlenecks on housing," Green said. ....

... in Honolulu a $250K salary is worth $82,672.04 ....

"... living in Hawaii would require an annual income of at least $80,000 to $100,000 for a single person and around $125,000 to $150,000 for a family ....”

... Honolulu average household credit card debt is $14,927, up by $2,498 ....

... #1 Highest Avg Rent in USA: Urban Honolulu, HI $2,514/mo ....

... lawmaking continues at the county level ....

... address the structural problems in the housing market, namely the strict regulatory environment ....

... you shouldn't have to be an "American Idol" winner to be priced back into Hawaii ....

... Hawaii has the highest debt-to-income ratio of any state at 2.26 ....

... you’ll get a lot more for your money in Mississippi than in Hawaii ....

... Desalination is an expensive energy hog ....

... Hawaii clocked in as the most expensive state for electricity, with a 44 cents per kilowatt-hour cost ....

... Three Lowest States: Arkansas (2.1), Mississippi (2.3), Hawaii (2.5) ....

... Recently, state legislators proposed a bill that, if passed, would increase the costs associated with obtaining and carrying a firearm for self-defense ....

... One of the bills in this past legislative session that fell to the cutting room floor when it probably shouldn’t have was Senate Bill 1035, which would have exempted medical services provided by health care providers if the services were paid for by Medicaid, Medicare, or TRICARE ....

... the Simpsons try to buy a house in Hawaii ....

... Honolulu ranks 280th of 300 overall and 62nd of 68 among large cities ....

... The four original contracts were negotiated in the 1990s and 2000s ... a typical residential customer using 500 kilowatts could see savings ranging from $9 to $13 per month ....

... Hawaii’s ideal savings benchmark is $1,813,768. But the average retirement fund there contains just $366,776. That’s 80% off the mark ....

"...Hawaiian Electric’s modeling shows that...energy rates may rise in the near-term transition to clean energy...."

... 2023’s Best & Worst Places to Start a Career ....

... Hawaii residents can reasonably expect to spend, on average, $1,501,762 over the course of their retirement starting at age 65, the highest amount of all states ....

... $104,052 Household Survival Budget drops to $85,812 when CTC (Child Tax Credit) and CDCTC (Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit) are applied ....

... Many of the locations that we will see initially will be in areas such as Hawaii, Guam, Japan and other locations in the [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] theater .... 

... Annual Nursing Salary When Adjusted for Cost of Living ....

... in Honolulu, spending on the basics is $865 higher than the monthly income for a family of three that earns $100,000 annually ....

... In Waikiki, Lahaina, and Kihei, 10,000s of hotel condo units were built as STRs in the 1980s and 1990s long before anybody ever heard of AirBnB and long before the recent housing inflation.  'Removing all STRs' would include stripping these units of their rights.  You are not supposed to notice this fatuous little trick, but now you have ....

... homebuilders say multi-unit projects could be more profitable, but there are just too many rules, regulations and delays to make it worth the effort ....

... 300 square feet, smallest in USA ....

... how Hawai'i can reduce the costs and the improve service quality of its various mass transportation systems ....

... Hawaii has the highest electricity price, nearly triple the US average rate, and the state relies on imported petroleum for 60% of its electricity generation ....

... In Honolulu, $100K amounts to just $36,036 when you consider taxes and the cost of living ....

... No one likes the idea of our county governments profiting from Hawaii’s high cost of living.  But that’s what is going to happen soon unless we engineer some property tax relief ....

... Akina said Hawaii home prices are sky-high because of the scarcity of housing caused by “all the regulation … that developers and individual home builders have to go through in order to renovate or in order to build.” ....

... but you can settle for emotional well-being at $111,600 ....

... Your rates will be going up to pay for the infrastructure we need to make irregular and erratic wind and solar electricity less damaging to our grid ....

... In most US metro areas, millennials are buying homes at prices above the general market.  But in Honolulu millennials are buying homes 4.2% below the market average.  This is the biggest downside gap in any of the 56 large metros studied ....

... adaptive reuse ....

... the state’s mandate to eliminate cesspools is too costly for homeowners ....

... medical professionals have found Hawaii to be an increasingly uninviting place to practice ....

... HECO announced a rate increase of 7% to buy more oil ....

... State cost of living index: 186 ....

... Rate hikes and massive amounts of greenhouse gases from a proposed biomass burning power plant would outweigh any benefits, the court found ....

... over the past year gas prices in Hawaii jumped from $4.57 to $4.88, a 6.8% increase ....

... Hawaii shines as #1 out of only 18 states where it’s more cost-effective to build rather than buy ....