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Last Thursday, I was shopping for some things before work in Waipahu, when I noticed all the three open checkout lanes were backed up with customers. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the delay was due to the clerks having to perform the additional step of un-scanning items after shoppers had realized they didn’t have enough money to buy all the items in their baskets.

In my lane, the woman ahead of me asked to un-scan a box of over-the-counter loratadine when she discovered it was $29. Another woman ahead of her had also held up the line asking to un-scan three items. I was about to offer to pay for the customer’s pills in front of me, but before I could even get the word “Wait!” out of my mouth, she abandoned the cashier and ran out of the store.

I will admit, the last few months, going shopping has been a little bit of a price shock. On Tuesday last week, on my lunch break in Honolulu I took the initiative of buying grocery store-made lunches as a treat for a coworker and myself – a chicken katsu bowl; a beet salad box; and a barbecue beef plate – along with two identical Halloween magazines for her and me. The price? $93. Ouch! 

Then on Wednesday morning, I had to buy two orchid leis for an office birthday party, along with a tube of hair gel, one snack-sized packet of pecans, and two sodas for myself and my coworker. How much for that? $75! Yikes! 

That doesn’t include the $576 I just spent on Saturday for two new tires and alignment on my car. I’m thankful that I’m personally able to absorb these prices, but many Oahu residents don’t even have the net on their paycheck to afford what I spent last week alone.

If you’re feeling like things have been more expensive than usual, you’re not imagining it. According to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress’s , the average Hawaii household has incurred a total of $33,365 in additional expenses since the year 2021. 

The same report indicates Hawaii households each month spend $183 more on food, $279 more on shelter, $137 more on energy and $284 more on transportation. Compared to one year earlier, the JEC estimates that locals must spend $169 more to maintain the same standard of living. 

A recent  conducted in September 2022 by Kaiser Permanente also showed that the ability to afford both food and housing was a significant concern on Oahu, with 18% of households reporting spending more than half their income on housing alone at the time.

Now I know some of you have once more at the tip of your tongue the phrase I repeatedly tell you to stop saying – “Lucky we live Hawaii!” – but I think it’s time we admit that we have a serious problem. 

As prices get even higher, people are going to be  of not having the income, savings or credit to pay for everything. On that last point,  that the average U.S. consumer held credit card debt of $6,501 in 2023, up 10% from the year earlier. 

 comes to my mind right now. Of course, as history has demonstrated, no one ever calls a period of hyperinflation a “hyperinflation” when they’re living it, just like many people in World War II didn’t call it “World War II” until they were years into it. But acknowledging we are in a crisis is essential to mobilizing the political and community willpower to intervene.

Crabs In The Bucket Vs. The Last Man Standing

Many of you have heard the saying that Hawaii has a “crabs in the bucket” problem where anytime someone tries to get out of the bucket, the others pull them back down. I would argue that this allegory is incorrect, because Hawaii right now doesn’t pull you in, it kicks you out. Just ask the 53% of Native Hawaiians , compared to the 47% living in the Aloha State.

The cost of living here is definitely a driver for sending some to the mainland, and others to the streets as homeless. This also is a factor in increasing community tensions, mental health epidemics, domestic violence, crime and numerous other problems that we are already struggling to hold the line on.

So what do we do? Well, the first thing is to use the upcoming legislative session as well as the county council sessions to set in motion a joint, comprehensive review of our economy and systemic factors that distort prices. 

Not everything the Big Square Building and county councils do is neutral. Some things benefit big interests against individual interests, and other measures raise the cost of compliance, production or delivery in ways that pass on costs to others in a snowball effect. 

While Hawaii already has , what we really need is an independent, highest-level systemic review of how the existing regime of local laws, regulations, taxes, fees, policies and so on work for (or don’t work for) the population’s bottom line as a whole. The scary question we need to ask is “How much of our high cost of living is actually the result of things we have the power to change in local government?”

This process could also involve a longitudinal public testimony period that would allow individuals and organizations to talk about their community experiences and to identify what’s working and what’s not. Emerging artificial intelligence platforms could also play a role in determining the impact or forecasting changes. 

The second thing is that we need to look at Hawaii in the context of the greater United States and the Pacific Ocean. For years we’ve accepted as fact that Hawaii prices are higher than on the mainland, but perhaps we need to also have a policy discussion about how the federal government can make prices more stable over longer periods in Hawaii. 

We’re reaching a point where you can’t survive unless you can trust the person next to you to help you.

We have to challenge the belief that things are destined to be expensive no matter what. I don’t know what that would entail, but I do know that our congressional delegation should be asking that question and looking for ways to answer it.

Last but not least, whatever happens, I think it’s important that we redevelop a culture of 100% accountability for the people around us. I see all these so-called “thought leaders” saying things like “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” or “take a cold shower to develop adversity resistance” but that’s all B.S. meant to justify excusing oneself from the moral duty to help the man or woman standing next to you. 

We’re reaching a point where you can’t survive unless you can trust the person next to you to help you. While we wait for government to figure out this out, we as private citizens need to keep doing what we can to be merciful, kind and supportive to one another. That, in this time, will be the ultimate test of the Aloha State.