There were 31,500 residents who were unemployed in 2013 while another 32,800 residents were working part-time even though they wanted more work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As Civil Beat reported in February, the “real unemployment rate” was 11.5 percent last year. That’s the rate economists sometimes use to more precisely describe the true unemployment situation.

Hawaii’s “real unemployment rate” is more than twice as high as the one we usually see because it includes people who have stopped looking for jobs and people who only work part-time even though they want — or need — to have full-time jobs.

Though the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations doesn’t track the number of Hawaii residents who are involuntarily part-time workers, the federal Bureau of Labor and Statistics released this week that gives a more detailed glimpse of just what’s going on with Hawaii’s workforce.

Labor and statistics bureau spokesman David Kong said that the real unemployment rate in Hawaii began to increase substantially around 2009, peaking in 2010. “It has started to go down in the last two years, but slightly,” he said.

When Hawaii’s real unemployment rate peaked at 16.9 percent in 2010, it was higher than the national average. At 11.5 percent in 2013, Hawaii was back below the national average of 13.8.

The new data also shows that some 12,000 residents were “marginally attached” to the labor force last year, which refers to people who want a job but who gave up on searching for a job in the four weeks preceding the survey.

More than one-third of those 12,000 people reported that they stopped looking because they believed no jobs were available for them.

Kong told Civil Beat that it’s not clear why the other two-thirds of those 12,000 people ended their searches.

Hawaii’s involuntary unemployment rate is still below the national average; and it’s much lower than states like Nevada, where the “real unemployment rate” was 18.1 percent last year.

In fact, many western states — California, Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona — have some of the highest real unemployment rates in the country.

But most U.S. states, including Hawaii, benefited from improving numbers last year. Hawaii was one of 33 states where all six of the federal government’s measures of unemployment decreased in 2013.

• Follow Adrienne LaFrance on Twitter at .

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Service members have been raped at Kailua barbecues, in Honolulu alleyways, and at bars in Kona and Wahiawa. One attack took place in a parked car in Waikiki. They’ve been sexually assaulted aboard ships in Pearl Harbor, in government buildings, and in grassy parks on military bases.

A decade of military records, obtained by Civil Beat through a series of open-records requests, details hundreds of sex crimes against male and female service members in Hawaii.

In addition to noting the troubling number and circumstances of such attacks, the records suggest that the underreporting of such assaults continues in all military branches in the state.

In that way, Hawaii is little different from the nation as a whole.

Staying Silent

The military faces intense scrutiny as the scope of the sexual assault problems within its ranks has become more widely known.

Some people might interpret a relatively low number of reported assaults in Hawaii as a sign that things aren’t so bad, but military officials suggest that the attacks are not being recorded.

“This is a historically underreported crime,” said Lt. Col. Cathy Wilkinson, a Defense Department spokeswoman. “We know that some victims are never ever going to tell anyone what happened to them.”

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa offered her interpretation of the problem in an interview with Civil Beat. “It’s seems pretty clear that there’s almost a culture of not reporting,” she said. “That has to be overcome.”

So the military isn’t just tracking the actual reports of such crimes, it is using comprehensive anonymous surveys to estimate the real prevalence of military sexual assaults.

By the Numbers

From the , released last year, the Defense Department extrapolates that 26,000 service members were sexually assaulted in 2012. That’s far more than the 3,374 sexual assaults that service members reported that year. 6.1 percent of women who responded said they experienced unwanted sexual contact; 1.2 percent of men who participated in the survey said they experienced unwanted sexual contact.

In Hawaii, there have been 1,072 reports of sexual assault in the past decade, which means an average of about 119 annually, although year-to-year numbers vary widely, in part because people sometimes wait to report crimes against them.

That’s an average of 119 attacks per year for a population of about 46,000 service members, not including the Coast Guard. That represents a significantly lower rate of sexual assault than the Pentagon estimates for the military as a whole, but it’s comparable with the national reporting rate for such attacks in the military.

Hawaii’s numbers suggest the state is largely in line with the national underreporting gap.

The Coast Guard failed to comply with Civil Beat’s repeated Freedom of Information Act requests beginning in early December 2013, so Hawaii figures reflect sexual assault data from the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.

According to documents obtained by Civil Beat, the Army — which represents the largest military population in Hawaii — recorded 629 sexual assaults between mid-2005 and 2014. The Navy and Marines recorded 377 sexual assaults in that time, and the Air Force recorded 66 sexual assaults.

Most victims of sexual assault in the military are men. that of the 26,000 service members who reported unwanted sexual contact in 2012, 14,000 were men and 12,000 were women. Since there are far fewer women in the military than men, women are more likely to be attacked, even though there are more male victims.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers have spent months debating the best way to improve the handling of military sex assault cases. One high-profile proposal was the Military Justice Improvement Act, introduced by New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand that in the U.S. Senate earlier this month amid questions about how it might disrupt the chain of command.

Both of Hawaii’s senators supported that measure, while both of the state’s congresswomen supported a companion bill put forth in the House. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

Gabbard, who is a military police captain in the Hawaii Army National Guard, has been outspoken in supporting the legislation.

The bill would have removed the commander from the prosecutorial process, a step that its supporters say would encourage more reporting among service members who have expressed concern that a commander’s role in responding to a report of a sexual assault raises an array of obstacles to their cases and their careers.

Disrupting the Chain of Command

The Pentagon emphasizes that victims can already anonymously report what happened to them through “restricted” reporting. For instance, of the 629 alleged assaults recorded by the Army in Hawaii since 2005, 58 were restricted reports, which means the victim can seek help but the perpetrator will not be investigated or prosecuted. Victims can change their minds and file an unrestricted report any time after an initial restricted report. Unrestricted reporting enables an investigation. But in order to move forward with an investigation, current law requires that a commander be notified.

This question about the chain of command has been a sticking point in the debate over how to curb military sex assaults. The Pentagon has spoken out against broader attempts to remove such investigations from the chain of command, including the bills that were supported unanimously by the Hawaii congressional delegation.

Wilkinson says commanders have to be involved so that they can be sure the victim is getting the help he or she needs, and that the investigation is moving forward through the proper channels. “You don’t have to talk to your commander about it, but your commander has to ensure that the system is working,” she said in an interview.

For members of Hawaii’s delegation in Congress, anonymous reporting that doesn’t entail prosecution isn’t good enough. “It’s true that those avenues are there, but we’re also talking about prosecution,” Gabbard told Civil Beat. “Someone who makes a restricted report, they’re not interested in prosecuting… And in building strong cases to prosecute, a commander is not trained in the areas that a military prosecutor is.”

A follow-up statement that Wilkinson provided to Civil Beat offers one of the Defense Department’s core arguments: “Commanders are responsible for setting and enforcing standards. They lead by example. We need to have commanders more involved, not less involved, in this process.”

Others have that leaving prosecutions up to lawyers alone could result in fewer prosecutions.

Fear and Taboos

But there’s also a clear sense of anxiety among victims about who will find out what happened to them. In the Defense Department’s most recent Workplace and Gender Relations Survey, most women said they had not reported the sexual assault — or assaults — they experienced. And 70 percent of those non-reporters said they didn’t want anyone to know what happened and that they felt uncomfortable making a report. The same percentage of women expressed similar sentiments in earlier surveys in 2006 and 2010. It is clear that most victims lack confidence in the system.

Men are even more likely to keep quiet about the sexual assaults they suffer. Among women, 67 percent of those who said they were assaulted said in an anonymous survey that they didn’t tell anyone. Among men, 81 percent of those attacked said they kept quiet. The survey shows that many men worry that no one will believe them or they fear punishment for secondary infractions like underage drinking. Others said they had heard about negative experiences from people who did report assaults.

Gabbard says the “consistent thread” she’s heard among victims is that they want reporting of sexual assault to be taken out of the chain of command.

“I’ve seen, really, a lack of faith in the judicial process which stops people from reporting,” Gabbard said in an interview. “There’s a concern about retaliation, a concern about, ‘I don’t know if they’ll believe me; it’s my word against his. And if they don’t believe me, then I’ve exposed myself and now I am going to have to work with this person for the foreseeable future.’ Even for those who are in command and have the best of intentions, there is, in my view, a potential inherent bias that can occur, even when you’re not really aware of it.”

Growing Awareness

The Pentagon insists that things are changing so quickly that many recent improvements to the reporting system are already taking root.

Last year, service members nationwide reported more than 5,000 sexual assaults, an increase of over 2012.

While the increase is alarming, the Defense Department views it as a sign that people are more comfortable coming forward.

“It’s been a sea change, Wilkinson said. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my time in the military. I’ve been in 18 years… I can’t highlight enough that just looking at the history is not going to give an accurate picture of today.”

For instance, the passage in December of the National Defense Authorization Act — known in military and political circles as the NDAA — makes it harder for commanders to override the military justice system by preventing them from throwing out sexual assault convictions.

The authorization bill also does away with statute of limitations in sex assault cases, requires a civilian review of any refusal to prosecute a case, and mandates dishonorable discharges for those convicted of sexual assault.

Also, all victims get access to a lawyer when they report a sexual assault — even victims who file restricted reports.

The Pentagon’s Wilkinson calls the authorization bill “the most sweeping change to the military justice system since 1968,” saying it entails more than 30 separate provisions related to sexual assault prevention and response in the military.

Last October, the Defense Department implemented a new Defense Sexual Assault Incident Database that Wilkinson says will enable the Pentagon to examine the problem at a more granular state-by-state and base-by-base level.

Last week, another bill aimed at improving the handling of sexual assault in the military passed in the U.S. Senate. Introduced by Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the legislation would, among other things, allow victims of sexual assault to make a case for why their perpetrators should be tried in civilian courts rather than within the military. The measure now heads to the House for consideration.

The sort of increase in reports of sexual assaults that the military is experiencing as a result of efforts to get more people to report what they went through, is hardly new. A similar phenomenon took place in the general population as advocacy groups set up abuse hotlines and police became more sensitive to relevant issues starting in the 1980s. If past experience is any indication, the military may find that the shift throws off year-to-year sexual assault comparisons for a time before things level out.

The next military sexual assault survey won’t come out until the spring of 2015. In the meantime, military service members in Hawaii face the same concerns about sexual assault and reporting attacks as members of the military nationwide.

“These are local people,” Gabbard said of service members in Hawaii. “When you look at our Hawaii units, there’s a strong sense of family, there’s a strong sense of making sure we take care of our own. But the same challenges that I observed within our unit are the same challenges I’ve heard from others who have been victims in active-duty units in various parts of the country. What we’ve seen is that in a variety of cultures, services, and settings, you are still seeing the perpetration of these violent crimes.”

The Defense Department has a 24/7 anonymous helpline for victims of sexual assault. You can call 877-995-5247 or .

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The Innovation Act, which is up for consideration in the U.S. Senate just two years after the last major patent reform passed in Congress, is aimed at eradicating so-called patent trolls.

Here’s what we know so far.

What’s a patent troll?
The term “patent troll” is usually used to describe people or shell corporations who obtain patents just so they can sue others for infringement. The classic patent troll move is to scoop up a bunch of broadly written patents, wait for a legitimate inventor to come up with a somewhat similar idea and then sue them. Often, trolls go after big companies who have enough money to pay away the nuisance of these kinds of lawsuits with settlements.

So how would this proposed law deter patent trolls?
would do a couple of things: It would require the use of real names in patent litigation, instead of letting trolls continue to sue people under the names of shell corporations. The bill would also discourage frivolous lawsuits by requiring the losing plaintiff in a patent case to pay the defendant’s costs. The proposal would make some other key changes, all aimed at thwarting patent trolls. (The Washington Post has on the ins and outs of the bill.)

So why does this matter to Hawaii hotels and restaurants?
There’s a national coalition of associations that represent big hotel and restaurant chains, airlines, grocers, etc. The group is called — counter-intuitively — the , and it’s pushing for passage of the Innovation Act. The national coalition has enlisted the support of local groups like the Hawaii Restaurant Association, which supports the bill.

Are patent trolls going after Hawaii restaurants?
Hawaii Restaurant Association Roger Morey told Civil Beat he doesn’t know of any local examples of restaurants that have been burned by patent trolls. But there are clear national examples. For instance, the mainland fast-food chain White Castle got saddled with patent infringement lawsuits for the way it was marketing. White Castle says it got sued for the kinds of practices that don’t seem like they can be covered by a patent, including for the way the company used scannable QR codes in promoting its brand, and for linking to news stories in an email to customers. ( about that case here.)

“They were sued two or three times,” Morey said. “These people who are patent trolls do that sort of thing. It’s legal but it’s certainly not fair. And because it’s not fair, it should be changed.”

Morey said the Hawaii hospitality industry is too important to the state for Hawaii to ignore the issue of patent trolls, which stifle innovation because businesses decide not to try new things if they fear getting sued.

What about the university? Why wouldn’t UH want to stop patent trolls?
This is where it gets complicated. Here’s the problem with the term “patent troll:” When people use it, they’re typically referring to shell companies or other individuals who acquire patents for products they never intend to build, just so they can sue the people who do. But universities often have a no-build strategy, too.

Wait, wait, wait. The University of Hawaii is a patent troll?
Not in the way people typically mean when they talk about a “patent troll.” But universities routinely patent ideas even though they never intend to manufacture their inventions as products — especially in Hawaii, where manufacturing is costly and rare. Instead, universities make money by licensing their inventions to manufacturers who want to be involved. For a school like UH, leveraging patents this way is a legitimate business model, not a scam. (This is true for individuals, too, who may have great ideas but lack the resources to implement them on a large scale.)

Last time we checked in with UH’s licensing office, the school told us it files about 70 patents a year.

Still, if a university patents something it never intends to make, it might legally be considered a troll. (And that’s a problem because, as Martin Hsia, a patent lawyer at Honolulu law firm Cades Schutte, notes the very term “patent troll” is pejorative.)

Under the proposed Innovation Act, the original vendor — a licensing university, for instance — would be targeted in litigation instead of the entities that use the invention. That measure, known as the “customer suit exception” could be helpful when trying to protect small businesses from legitimate patent trolls, but the exception is broad enough that critics of the act say it could hurt individuals and universities. Driving up costs of litigation is another strategy meant to curb real trolls, but it could discourage universities and individual inventors from protecting their inventions.

So are there any actual patent trolls in Hawaii?
Patent litigation of any kind is relatively unusual in Hawaii — there aren’t even very many patent lawyers in the state! But Hsia says he has at least three clients who have encountered trouble with patent trolls. (“Two of them are huge businesses in Hawaii and you know them, you see them advertised all the time, but I cannot disclose who they are, he said.)

So how can we stop the real patent trolls without hurting universities and individual inventors?
Patent attorneys like Honolulu-based Leighton Chong say a more measured approach is best.

“I personally favor the middle path,” Chong told me. “Neither cutting off trolls from helping small inventors and universities, nor failing to curb their abuses. A more reasoned approach is not likely with high-powered lobbyists influencing Congressional sausage-making.”

But at least one Hawaii delegate has been similarly skeptical of patent reform ideas in Washington. Last time Civil Beat talked to Sen. Mazie Hirono about patent reform, she cited concerns about aiming for trolls but actually hurting the little guy. (Both Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Colleen Hanabusa of the Innovation Act when it passed in the House late last year.)

There are circulating in Congress. Hsia suspects that a pair of cases that are slated to go before the Supreme Court could make it more difficult for actual patent trolls to continue engaging in their tactics.

Then again, he says patents have been weakening since the 1990s, and that’s because there are economic incentives from industry leaders to keep them weak. Here’s how Hsia explains it: “The people who are making money nowadays are not the people who are coming up with the invention but the people stealing the invention. And those are the people who pay off Congress now… Facebook doesn’t create anything new. Google doesn’t create anything new. They use what other people have created before and make it easier for other people to use.”

Is the Innovation Act going to pass?
We don’t know yet. The bill passed in the House and it’s still in the early stages of consideration in the Senate. President Barack Obama supports it. Given some of the bipartisan support for the bill, the attitude on Capitol Hill seems to be that this kind of legislation has a pretty good chance of moving along.

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The state’s unemployment rate was compared with a national rate of , according to the most recent data from the state and federal governments. Hawaii’s rate is the eighth lowest in the country, .

But the official unemployment rate offers an incomplete portrait of what’s going on in Hawaii’s job market. The Wall Street Journal the unemployment rate one of the “most misleading” numbers that shapes policy. The op-ed also called it a “statistical artifact.”

Hawaii’s unemployment rate doesn’t reveal how many people have to work multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet even though they really want one full-time gig.

“In an ideal world we’d have an account of all that but we don’t have any specifics,” said Bill Kunstman of the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. “That’s one of the things that sort of clouds the lens on the unemployment report… a lot of people may have multiple part-time jobs but that’s not how the question (in the monthly state survey) is asked.”

One of the major limitations of the standard unemployment rate is that it doesn’t represent the population of long-term unemployed people who have stopped searching for work.

One of the alternative measures of unemployment used by the labor statistics bureau includes all people who are seeking employment plus anyone who isn’t actively looking for a job but would accept one if the opportunity came up, as well as those who are forced to work part-time even though they’d rather work full-time. Some economists refer to this measure, which the bureau calls “U-6,” as the “real unemployment rate,” because it offers a clearer indication of unemployment and underemployment.

In Hawaii, the “real unemployment rate” was 11.5 percent in 2013 compared with 13.8 percent nationally.

Civil Beat analyzed 10 years of unemployment data and found Hawaii’s “real unemployment rate” fluctuated between 6.2 percent and 7.5 percent between 2004 and 2008 before nearly doubling to 15.5 percent in the year after the recession hit. The rate has been creeping down since it hit a high of 16.9 percent in 2010.

Even with its ups and downs, Hawaii’s main unemployment indicators — both the standard rate and the broader U6 measure — are consistently lower than their national counterparts.

So what is the state doing right?

Whichever measure you use, Hawaii’s unemployment rate tends to fluctuate less — for better and for worse — than unemployment in other parts of the country. Whereas other states might see huge job gains related to growth in industries like construction or oil, Hawaii tends to stay relatively flat.

North Dakota’s oil boom, for instance, has been a huge draw for the state. The population has swelled while unemployment is 2.6 percent, the lowest in the country — and in a range that many economists have described as “full employment.”

Hawaii’s remote location means fewer people tend to flock to the state for short-term booms.

“If you had a construction boom in Vegas, people in New Mexico, California, or Utah just hop in their cars and drive to Vegas,” said , executive director of the Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawaii. “That’s less common in Hawaii.”

On the other hand, Hawaii is not subject to some of the ups and downs associated with manufacturing industries in other states.

“In Hawaii, you have virtually zero manufacturing,” said Todd Johnson, an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. “So in these other states where that is a large proportion of the workforce, when manufacturing is down, they’re going to be having these much higher unemployment rates.”

In Hawaii, the government is the biggest employer in the state. (This includes local, state, federal and military jobs.) The federal government shed 12,000 jobs in January, so it remains to be seen whether the impact of those most recent losses to Hawaii will lower the state’s unemployment rate. (Hawaii’s unemployment numbers for January are expected later this month.)

Hawaii has lost federal jobs every month for the past sixth months. Because this measure is seasonally adjusted, recent months in which federal jobs appear to have been added amount to a loss when compared with the same period the year before.

The second-largest industry in Hawaii is hospitality. “And hospitality has done quite well compared with several other industries,” state labor spokesman Kunstman said. “The other big one is trade, transportation and utilities, and that’s been kind of up and down but I believe it’s been doing better.”

The strength of leading industries is only one more element in Hawaii’s employment situation.

Kunstman points to concern over the shortened duration of unemployment benefits during this recession compared with previous economic downturns. Such benefits historically have helped keep the economy afloat in periods of sluggishness.

“Macroeconomically, it’s going to be a problem because unemployment benefits are meant to be a stimulative,” he said.

The many unemployed people whose benefits have come to an end no longer have that money to spend. President Barack Obama said at the White House last month that there are .

For economic recovery to become palpable to the people of Hawaii, job growth will likely need to continue.

On the national level, more people were looking for jobs last month than were searching the month before — a likely sign of restored optimism about job availability. Hawaii, too, has seen its labor force grow slightly for four straight months. As UH’s Bonham points out, the size of the labor force directly affects the unemployment rate, which means looking at the labor force is just as important as tracking the jobless rate.

“The unemployment rate is a difficult statistic to use to gauge how well an economy is really doing,” Bonham said. “If Hawaii’s unemployment is kicking up because people are entering the labor force, that could be good news because they are finding the prospects for jobs are better. And yet when you look at a lot of measures, Hawaii still does look like it’s doing a little bit better than the nation as a whole. Not tremendously better. So you get a picture of Hawaii, yes, recovering, but still having a ways to go.”

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Tourists get a hint of it when homeless people push shopping carts through Waikiki. Residents of Oahu can’t miss the contrast between the sprawling mansions of Kahala and the many people living in tents in Kakaako.

So it was a little surprising to find U.S. Census Bureau data showing that income is distributed more evenly across the state than it is across the country as a whole. In other words, “you have less income inequality in Hawaii than you have nationally,” Census survey statistician Kirby Posey told Civil Beat.

But that doesn’t mean that Hawaii is trending toward more income equality. President Barack Obama called income inequality “the defining challenge of our time,” and Hawaii hasn’t escaped it. The gap between Hawaii’s lowest and highest income brackets is larger now than it was before the recession and it is unclear when — or if — it will return to pre-recession levels.

Hawaii got hammered by the economic downturn. No other state saw a larger percentage drop in the median income or a bigger spike in the percentage of people in poverty between 2008 and 2010.

Civil Beat analyzed a few different data sets to figure out how Hawaii’s faring. First, we looked at income distribution using a measure called the Gini index. The U.S. Census Bureau uses the Gini index to examine income distribution at county, state, and national levels — it’s a way to tell how income is spread across a given population of people.

This index measures income distribution on a scale of zero to one, with zero representing absolute income equality and one representing absolute inequality. (Scoring a one on the Gini index would mean one person has all of the income.) The most recent Gini index in Hawaii was 0.4257 compared with 0.4757 nationally.

But the Gini index doesn’t convey the full picture. If roughly the same number of people moves from the middle income brackets between $50,000 and $99,999 into lower income brackets and higher income brackets at the same time, that population’s Gini index may not change much. So it’s also helpful to examine — in dollar amounts — how income levels are changing over time. Civil Beat used Census data to track those numbers, too.

What we found is that even though income equality is more pronounced in Hawaii than in the nation as a whole, the state’s middle class still appears to be shrinking.

Fewer Hawaii households earn between $50,000 and $99,999 per year now than just a few years ago. Today, more Hawaii households are either earning much less than that or much more than that.

Posey, at the Census Bureau, says the recession could be responsible for the shrinking number of households with an income somewhere in the middle.

Looking at the Gini index, income inequality in Hawaii has yoyo’d since the Great Recession began in 2008. Since 2010, the trend has been toward more income equality in the state, but it still hasn’t returned to its pre-recession level and salaries for many middle class and poor people in the state haven’t recovered.

At a national level, by contrast, the income gap between rich and poor only became more intense between 2007 and the end of 2012. (Numbers for 2013 aren’t yet available.)

About 5,000 Hawaii households vanished from the $50,000 to $99,999 income range between 2010 and 2012, the most recent year for which Census data is available. Meanwhile, nearly 1,800 households joined the lowest tier of earners making less than $10,000 per year, and about 2,000 households began earning more than $200,000 per year. In other words, a substantial number of the Hawaii households that once earned $50,000 to $99,000 are now earning much more or far less.

A county-by-county comparison in Hawaii shows that the income gap is greatest on the Big Island, followed by Maui, Honolulu, and Kauai. But the income gap on the Big Island is still smaller than it is on the national level.

Hawaii’s not alone: Nationally, 356,728 households disappeared from those $50,000 to $99,000 income ranges over two two-year periods (2007-2009 and 2010-2012), according to .

Is Hawaii Doing Something Right?

Part of why income is distributed in a relatively more balanced way across Hawaii’s population is because the state isn’t home to major firms — companies like, say, Boeing and Microsoft — state economist Eugene Tian told Civil Beat. Cities like San Francisco, which “the epicenter of the income inequality debate,” and New York City are home to extremely wealthy companies that can exacerbate the gap between rich and poor. The tech boom in the bay area puts a lot of money in the hands of relatively few people, but it drives up the cost of living for many other residents.

Isn’t Hawaii a Land of Millionaires?

Earlier this month Hawaii in the top five for millionaires per capita in the country. (The firm based on a combination of data from the Census Bureau, the Survey of Consumer Finance, and pollster Nielsen.)

And yet Hawaii’s incomes are more balanced than those of three out of four other states with the most millionaires, as measured by the Gini index. (Among the top five most millionaire-rich states, only Alaska has a smaller income gap than Hawaii, according to Census data.)

Tian explains: “We have a higher percentage of millionaires, but on the other end, our poverty rate is lower… And Hawaii has a pretty good government assistance for most of the people at the low end. Native Hawaiians are in a group that actually has a higher poverty rate and a higher unemployment rate, but because of the government assistance in housing, it helps offset the Hawaiians [otherwise low] income.”

It also helps that Hawaii has such a low unemployment rate, just . Nationally, it was .

If Hawaii’s unemployment remains low, Posey said, he would expect income inequality to remain stable over time. When unemployment spikes upward, workers are more vulnerable to layoffs and employers efforts to lower wages while low unemployment tends to place workers in better bargaining position.

Still, even though Hawaii is faring somewhat better than the nation as a whole, income inequality remains an area of concern for some economists and lawmakers in the state.

In his a few weeks ago, Gov. Neil Abercrombie proposed tax changes intended to help Hawaii residents with fixed or middle incomes. And President Barack Obama touched on the growing divide between the rich and the poor during his State of the Union address last week: “Those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened.”

As the Economic Research Organization at the University of Hawaii (UHERO) , income inequality was stable for three decades after World War II and has been steadily climbing since then.

From UHERO: “The bottom line is that inequality in Hawaii is changing much like it is on the mainland: Inequality is growing rapidly and almost of all this is due to the huge increase in the share of income received by the top one percent.”

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Hawaii has a reputation for being a pot-friendly state. But living in the islands isn’t all Maui Wowie and Kona Gold. We’re a long way from seeing Honolulu police officers hand out bags of Doritos at a public hempfest,

So even though Hawaii lawmakers are talking about making the lucrative green weed legal, there are still strict regulations about pakalolo in the aloha state.

Here’s what you need to know.

Who’s allowed to use marijuana in Hawaii?

Generally, marijuana remains illegal in Hawaii. But people who get state approval due to a medical condition can consume it. Illnesses, diseases or other conditions that make a person eligible include cancer, HIV or AIDS, glaucoma, severe pain or nausea, seizures, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, and other health problems.

How many people in Hawaii are allowed to smoke marijuana — and which island has the most people using medical marijuana?

The Big Island has the most registered medical marijuana users, according to the most recent figures from the Narcotic Enforcement Division of the state Department of Public Safety, which is currently responsible for approving medical marijuana use. Here’s how it breaks down, according to division data through last month:

What kind of doctors can prescribe marijuana?

Actually, doctors in Hawaii can’t legally prescribe pot, which is a Schedule I drug. At the federal level, this means that even though at least 20 states have adopted laws allowing for medical marijuana use, the that marijuana has a medical application, so it would be illegal for doctors to prescribe a Schedule I drug. But Hawaii’s medical marijuana law means they can recommend it to patients. This semantic difference reflects marijuana’s peculiar legal status at a time when it’s considered both an illegal drug and a medical aide by different levels of government.

Beginning in January 2015, only a person’s primary care doctor will be authorized to recommend marijuana in Hawaii. Right now, there are 191 doctors statewide who recommend marijuana, according to the most recent data from the Department of Public Safety.

Can any doctor recommend marijuana?

No. Physicians who want to be permitted to recommend it have to register with the Narcotics Enforcement Division at the Department of Public Safety. (Check out the .)

The state’s Medical Use of Marijuana Program from the Department of Public Safety to the Health Department, a switch that will be complete by Jan. 2, 2015.

What does a doctor do before recommending marijuana?

A doctor is required to complete a face-to-face assessment, including reviewing the patient’s medical history to confirm that he or she has a debilitating medical condition. The doctor has to come to the conclusion that the potential benefits of marijuana use would outweigh the health risks for the patient. Physicians’ assistants aren’t allowed to recommend marijuana in Hawaii.

My doctor said she’d recommend marijuana for me. Now what?

Don’t light up yet. First you need a registry ID card. To get this card, you and your doctor need to send some key documents to the Narcotics Enforcement Division of the Department of Public Safety, including a copy of your current Hawaii ID card or a copy of your passport.

You also need to include a check to the Narcotics Enforcement Division to cover the $25 registration fee and the completed registration form, signed by you and your doctor. Applications aren’t available online, and can only be obtained through a doctor, a measure that the Narcotics Enforcement Division says is meant to curb fraudulent applications.

Once the Narcotics Enforcement Division receives and verifies your info, they’ll send a registry ID card to your doctor. At that point, your doc has to sign the card before handing it over to you.

And remember, authority over the medical marijuana program is soon being transferred from the Public Safety department to the state Health Department.

Now that I have my registry ID card, can I smoke weed in Hawaii for life?

Nope. from the time your doctor signed it.

So where are all the dispensaries where I can buy my medical marijuana?

The state government allows people to grow marijuana for medical use, but unlike states like California, there aren’t any dispensaries where approved patients can buy the stuff.

Some patients who get approval to use medical marijuana have complained that they don’t know how to find it. House Speaker Joe Souki said on the opening day of this legislative session that it’s an issue he hopes to tackle.

For now, Hawaii residents with approval to use medical marijuana must grow their own plants or ask a designated “caregiver” to do it for them. If you have a caregiver grow for you, you can’t grow your own. It has to be one or the other. And if you grow your own plants, no one else is allowed to help manage or care for them.

I don’t have approval from the state to use marijuana, but can I just call myself a caregiver and start growing it?

No. The person who’s authorized to use marijuana has to select a primary caregiver — that is, someone other than himself who is going to grow the marijuana. The caregiver has to be at least 18 years old and is only allowed to grow marijuana for one patient at a time.

When a patient submits paperwork to the Department of Public Safety to apply for a registry ID card, the patient needs to include photocopies of two forms of ID from his or her caregiver.

These days, there are about 1,540 registered caregivers across the state, according to Public Safety numbers.

Even if a caregiver is only growing for one patient, are there any rules about how much marijuana that caregiver can grow at a time?

Yep. Right now, the law says that an authorized patient or caregiver can have seven total plants — four immature plants and three mature ones. (Immature plants have no visible buds.) But the law is changing. In January 2015, the “immature” language will be removed. This means that those who are allowed to grow marijuana will be able to grow a total of seven plants of any maturity at a given time.

How big of a stash is someone with medical marijuana approval allowed to keep?

For now, you’re not allowed to have more than three ounces of usable marijuana in your possession — that’s Starting in January 2015, the maximum amount is getting bumped up to four ounces. ( that explains the changes.)

What else is changing in January 2015?

The governor also that will establish a special marijuana medical registry fund within the state treasury. Theoretically, the creation of that fund paves the way for broader distribution — via state-approved dispensaries, for instance — or even legalization somewhere down the line. In Colorado, where recreational marijuana use became legal Jan. 1, economists project more than $578 million in annual marijuana sales will yield nearly $70 million in state tax revenue.

Since I’m authorized by the state to use marijuana, I can light up a joint on the beach or when I’m stuck in Honolulu traffic, right?

No. You’re not authorized to use marijuana in public, even when the state approves your use of medical marijuana. The only place you can toke is in your own home.

What about when I hop a flight to another island?

Airports are run by the federal government, so it’s best to leave your marijuana at home.

So as long as I stay at home, can I take any form of THC once I have my signed state registry card?

Again, no. Straight THC is not permitted. Neither is butane honey oil, also known as hash oil.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article said medical marijuana users in Hawaii are allowed to keep up to one ounce of marijuana at a time. We’ve updated the article to reflect approved users can have up to one ounce of marijuana per mature plant — that adds up to a maximum of three ounces.

DISCUSSSION: Do you think marijuana should be legalized in Hawaii? What do you think of the policy as it stands now?

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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s campaign distributed a new re-election video on Wednesday. The spot clocks in at just under three minutes, and it’s exactly the kind of message we’ve come to expect from Gabbard: Poised, ambitious, and savvy.

No question, Gabbard had a busy freshman year in Congress. She’s already made a name for herself in national political circles.

But this ad doesn’t capture the fact that she’s still a relative rookie in the House. More on that in a minute.

First, have a look:

Gabbard’s taking cues from her own campaign playbook here. Her relaxed tone along with the warm lighting and chill music all call to mind some of her early campaign videos from 2012.

This time around, Gabbard is more confident in front of the camera. It makes sense. She’s had plenty of opportunities to practice since moving to Washington. The congresswoman is making a name for herself as a rising star in the Democratic party, and in turn, has become a familiar face on some of the national political shows like “Meet the Press.”

Gabbard’s message for 2014 is consistent with what she’s been communicating to her constituents in recent months. (Incidentally, much of what she says in the ad reflects her responses to a Civil Beat survey of Hawaii delegates’ New Year’s Resolutions.)

She runs down a list of her many accomplishments in Washington, and what she says checks out — but some additional context helps.

She starts the ad by talking about the first bill she introduced, which easily made its way to the president’s desk. Indeed, Gabbard’s became law in August, and received unanimous bipartisan support from all the members of Congress who voted.

She also takes credit for reinstating the Native Hawaiian Education Act and adding a provision to the Farm Bill to help Hawaii’s coffee farmers. (Gabbard did this work in partnership with the rest of the Hawaii delegation, though she doesn’t mention them here. Fair enough. After all, this is an ad for her reelection campaign, not theirs.)

When considering the litany of accomplishments Gabbard claims, it’s important to put things in perspective: Gabbard introduced three bills last year, putting her in the bottom 15 percent among bill introducers in Congress, But remember: Quality matters more than quantity in lawmaking.

Another detail: The congresswoman isn’t always precise when she talks about her relationship to legislation — a pretty wonky nuance, but one that’s worth keeping in mind. For instance, she says: “I spoke out strongly against the overreach of the NSA and its data collection on innocent Americans, sponsoring legislation like the USA Freedom Act.”

Yes, Gabbard has been outspoken about her belief that the NSA’s data-collection practices are But the congresswoman didn’t technically sponsor the USA Freedom Act; she co-sponsored it.

What’s the difference?

Co-sponsors are invited to sign their support to legislation, whereas sponsors are a bill’s original introducers. There are routinely dozens of co-sponsors on any given bill, and lawmakers co-sponsor new bills all the time. In the case of the USA Freedom Act, 57 House Republicans and 63 House Democrats signed on as co-sponsors, including Gabbard and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.

Finally, Gabbard mentioned her work on the issue of military sexual assault. As the only member of the Hawaii delegation who is in the military, Gabbard has demonstrated that this is one of the issues she cares most about. She’s been front and center in public conversations about legislation aimed at improving accountability for sex crimes in the military, and her dedication to the issue came through in the ad.

Some of the other issues that get a passing shout-out toward the end of the video: The importance of a strong economy, finding jobs for people who need them, care for Hawaii’s kupuna, bringing troops home from war, upholding civil liberties, honoring and empowering veterans, and creating a sustainable future for Hawaii.

Ultimately, Gabbard is employing the same steady and humble tone that helped her campaign to victory the last time around. She’s also bringing up issues that are perennially important to Hawaii voters. Since before she got to Congress, Gabbard’s willingness to listen to the people she represents has been a hallmark of her governing style.

And, clearly, Gabbard is paying attention to what voters want to hear.

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For Hawaii’s representatives in Congress, there were some big 2013 disappointments. Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform or extend long-term unemployment benefits that are set to expire for nearly 1.2 million people. They are also impatient for federal recognition for Native Hawaiians similar to the recognition already granted to Alaska Natives and Native American tribes, and to pass legislation aimed at ending military sexual assaults.

Looking ahead, Hawaii representatives have a slew of policy goals, along with some personal ones — Sen. Mazie Hirono wants to “de-clutter” her home, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa wants to re-connect with old friends, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard resolves to squeeze more surf and yoga into the coming year.

Civil Beat caught up with Hanabusa and Hirono by phone, and received email replies from Gabbard and Sen. Brian Schatz. Here’s what they told us, lightly edited¹ and condensed:

What’s something you hoped to accomplish but did not (so far) in 2013?

Schatz: After a lot of hard work to finally reach a two-year budget compromise that rolls back the sequester and moves our country forward, we were unable to find agreement to extend long-term unemployment benefits. I find it stunning and disappointing that the House of Representatives left DC to go home for the holidays, and that Republicans in the Senate repeatedly blocked Senate Democrats’ work to pass an extension of these benefits. We tried multiple ways to extend these benefits before the holidays and Republicans would not agree.

Hirono: The top of the list is comprehensive immigration reform… But I was happy to hear that (Wisconsin Republican Rep.) Paul Ryan recently in Chicago comprehensive immigration reform. Coming out of the budget compromise between him and (Washington Democratic Sen.) Patty Murray, I’d say having Paul Ryan weigh in and say we need to get this done, that’s a good sign. There are 11 million people in the shadows, undocumented, who need to come out of the shadows.

Hanabusa: What we were hoping to accomplish was the issue of federal recognition, at least getting it moved along, but there were all different kinds of issues associated with that. I was very disappointed. The other issue — which is something that I personally wanted — doing away with sequestration. I wanted to see it repealed. Sequestration was one thing we were told would not happen but, in essence, it happened, and we haven’t been able to get rid of it. In the budget bill they were able to reduce it but… it’s just not acceptable.

Gabbard: One bill I’m disappointed didn’t come to a vote in either the House or Senate is the Military Justice Improvement Act. I introduced this bill to get to the heart of the issue of sexual assault within our ranks by removing the decision of whether or not to prosecute from the chain of command, and putting it into the hands of trained military prosecutors. (Editor’s note: Gabbard is a co-sponsor of the bill, which was ) I have worked hard with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York and a bipartisan group of supporters to tackle this issue head on, gaining support both in Congress and the military for this reform. While I was encouraged by the progress we made this year, both in raising awareness and including meaningful change in the Defense bill that passed, we will continue to push for a vote on our bill next year.

I am also looking forward to building awareness and additional support for the USA Freedom Act, which I sponsored with Rep. James Sensenbrenner, the architect of the original USA Patriot Act. (Editor’s note: Gabbard is a co-sponsor of the act, which of Vermont.) We are working with a bipartisan group of House members to address the surveillance overreach occurring within the NSA and target reforms to the Patriot Act to ensure that innocent Americans’ personal data is protected. This is a generational issue with our civil liberties at stake, and the American people deserve a solution that both protects their right to personal privacy while ensuring a strong national defense.

What steps will you take to make it happen in 2014?

Gabbard: From my first day in Congress, I have made it a priority to build relationships with my colleagues from across the spectrum. This effort has been critical in my work on issues important to Hawaii and our country, including the passage and enactment of the very first bill I introduced It is also important as I continue my work to build support for proposals like the MJIA and the Freedom Act among my colleagues who may be on the fence. For example, I met with several of my Senate counterparts this fall to support Sen. Gillibrand’s effort to gain co-sponsors and add the MJIA to the Senate version of the Defense bill. While it unfortunately didn’t receive a vote for procedural reasons, we built support for our proposal and laid the groundwork for future action.

Hanabusa: We have to stay the course (in seeking federal recognition for Native Hawaiians) until we hear otherwise. We need to hear from the White House before we can chart the next steps. There are three ways you can achieve federal recognition: One is through Congress, the other is what you’re hearing about now, which is executive orders; and then the third is judicial, which in my opinion would require the state to take some kind of action. I think that whatever the course may be, it’s going to be something that the entire delegation pools behind… We have to hear from all the players, primarily the executive branch. It’s in their court.

Hirono: I continue to talk with immigration advocates. We are in touch with them all across the country. These are people for whom this is a top issue. It affects so many companies, families, every state. I also have been meeting with both in Hawaii and across the country— the DREAMers are the young (undocumented) people who get here before they turn 16. I am proud of the fact that the UH board of regents took the step to offer in-state tuition to DREAMers in Hawaii… We also worked really hard on making some important changes with how we deal with sexual assault in the military. I’m hopeful that as we go forward we’ll bring forth the Gillibrand change to the Military Justice Act.

Schatz: Democrats are united in the Senate to make (extending long-term unemployment benefits) our first order of business in January and we will have a vote before January 7 to extend unemployment benefits.

What other 2014 resolutions have you made — either personally or in your capacity as a member of the Hawaii Congressional delegation?

Hirono: The ones I actually may keep? From the work standpoint, of course, I’m going to continue to focus on immigration reform. I view that as closing what I call the “opportunity gap.” Middle class families are really having a much harder time.

And then, personally, I want to continue to de-clutter my house in Hawaii. I made a start during the Thanksgiving period to do that. I’m something of a keeper-of-all-things, so it’s quite the challenge to go through basically 30 years of curio from my political life… I’m not throwing away, but I’m recollecting as I go through boxes and boxes of stuff. One other thing I’m going to continue to do — part of the balance in my life is to do art, so I want to continue to work in clay. I recently did a mosaic mirror triptych.

Schatz: My central mission as Hawaii’s Senator is to help middle class families make it in Hawaii. Too many families feel stretched thin, and they just need a little help to make ends meet. I’m dedicated to helping families enter the middle class in Hawaii, and also making sure they can stay in the middle class. As part of that mission, I’m working with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on what we are calling the Opportunity Plan. This plan would: ensure women receive equal pay for equal work, raise the minimum wage, establish universal pre-K, expand access to quality, affordable day care, and create family and medical leave insurance so workers don’t have to choose between their job and caring for a sick loved one.

Middle-class families also need to be able to afford college – which is why I’m introducing legislation to make college more affordable… As we all know, generations take care of generations in Hawaii. That’s why I worked with one of the most senior members of the Senate, Tom Harkin – the powerful Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions – to introduce legislation to enhance Social Security and extend the life of the program. It would increase the average beneficiary’s Social Security check by $65 per month, helping make sure our seniors have the dignity and security they deserve in retirement.

I believe in the principle that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to get ahead in this country. And the best way to do that is for me to fight to support families in Hawaii and across the nation, giving them every possible opportunity to succeed.

Gabbard: More yoga and more surf! I want to expand my work on issues of innovation, growth and technology. So many of the challenges we face are tied to the need to enhance growth in our economy. Primarily, I am focused on identifying creative ways to bring innovation and common sense into the government, and create an environment that supports and enhances entrepreneurship and job creation here in Hawaii and across the United States. This is critical as we look to support everything from American economic competitiveness in the global market, to the educational opportunities our keiki have on all of our islands.

Hanabusa: One of the most important things in my resolutions has to do with one of the most critical issues for me — that has always been the pivot to the Asia Pacific… What I would like to see is a very clear strategy. What does it mean to pivot to the Asia Pacific? The pivot to is not just a military pivot, it is everything else. The most important thing that we know that we do there — people really want our presence — humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. We also have issues of safety and security in the region. So that whole strategy, what it means for us to pivot, I really want to see us come up with a clear statement. And some of that will happen within the QDR,

And on a personal level, I’m going to make this a resolution: The fact that it is so important to stay in contact with your friends and it’s so important to remember to touch people and to say, ‘Thank you.’ I like to think that I’m not bad at that, but… I want to be better at it. Those relationships are very important. Just being in the Christmas parade in Waianae and having so many people that I know their faces, saying, ‘Welcome home.’ My resolution is never forget where you’re from.

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President Barack Obama issued a statement shortly after the vote, commending Congress for its collaboration and calling the measure “a good first step away from the shortsighted, crisis-driven decision-making that has only served to act as a drag on our economy.”

The budget agreement lays out $1.012 trillion in discretionary spending — which doesn’t include congressional funds for mandatory programs like Medicare and Social Security — for federal agencies for fiscal year 2014 and $1.014 trillion for the following year.

So what does it mean for Hawaii?

We’ll have a more detailed sense of the local impact once appropriations committees begin their work in January, but areas of the budget deal that are troubling to Hawaii lawmakers are already becoming clear.

Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, the only member of the Hawaii delegation to vote against the bill, was troubled by what she sees as unnecessary and harmful cuts despite the bipartisan agreement.

“We’ve seen the decline in the deficit,” Hanabusa told Civil Beat Wednesday. “So why is it that we’re not able to take those gains and realize that we, as a country, need to invest in ourselves? I still see…that we’re cutting, instead of investing in the country.”

In a phone interview Wednesday evening, Hanabusa said that one of her biggest concerns was that the government is breaking a promise to members of the military. The budget deal includes $85 billion in cuts over the next 10 years and nearly $13 billion in fee hikes for airline passengers, along with $6 billion in reduced cost-of-living benefits for military retirees younger than 62.

“One of the important things to me is the government has to keep its word,” Hanabusa said. “Military personnel were told that if they served, if they put themselves in harm’s way, they could retire after 20 years. To take away 1 percent off their [cost of living adjustment] every year until they’re 62 is going back on a fundamental promise that was made to them.”

House budget aides say this cut will effectively reduce lifetime retirement pay by about 6 percent for an enlisted service member who enrolls at age 18,

The budget deal also extends sequester-level cuts to Medicare by two years, which Hanabusa says amounts to balancing the budget “on the backs of kupuna.”

Although the cuts will primarily affect Medicare providers, a , as well as lawmakers like Hanabusa, say that cutting funds to health care providers will ultimately limit seniors’ access to care. low Medicare payments as a reason for restricting the number of Medicare patients they can serve.

All three other members of the Hawaii delegation voted to pass the plan but cited concerns about cuts to benefits for military retirees and federal workers. The entire state delegation also has publicly voiced concern about the budget deal boosting air travel fees. “The people of Hawaii are going to take the hit because, through no fault of their own, we have one mode of interisland transport and we are a chain of islands,” Hanabusa said.

The plan would double fees for interisland travel within Hawaii to about $10 per round trip flight as of October 2014, by Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz. The pair on Wednesday to exempt Hawaii and Alaska from these higher fees.

In some ways, the three members of the Hawaii delegation who voted for the budget agreement may regret certain elements that did or did not make it into the quietly negotiated bipartisan budget agreement, such as Congress’ failure to extend long-term unemployment insurance for 1.3 million Americans who are slated to stop receiving checks on Jan. 1.

Still, Sen. Schatz defended the overall agreement in a statement released Wednesday: “In a divided government, the people expect responsible leaders to find ways to govern and work together. For too long, the United States government has been lurching from crisis to manufactured crisis and using short–term stopgaps to fund the government — eroding the American people’s confidence and hurting the economy.”

He called the two-year budget deal a way to “move beyond reckless threats of government shutdown” and a signal of “much-needed cooperation.”

On the other hand, the deal that passed Wednesday doesn’t raise the debt ceiling. That’s likely to return as an issue in early 2014.

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The federal government spent $159 billion in contracts in Hawaii over the past 10 years. From that pool of money, the top 10 corporate contractors secured at least $200 million apiece since 2003, with two of them crossing the $1 billion threshold. That’s according to eight years of data from the Census Bureau’s Consolidated Federal Funds Report and two years of data from , a government-run website that replaced the Census reporting system.

Not surprisingly, the lion’s share of the money Hawaii receives annually is for military projects like jet fuel, ship repair, housing upgrades for troops based in Hawaii and other defense expenditures.

For instance, as Civil Beat previously reported, Hawaii’s $20-billion federal haul last year included $11.6 billion in Homeland Security funds and $2.6 billion for the Department of Defense.

The Texas-based oil company Tesoro tops the list of federal contractors in Hawaii, having scooped up $1.8 billion since 2003. The company, which sells fuel to the Department of Defense in Hawaii, for $539 million earlier this year.

So while Tesoro won’t top the list of federal contracts in the islands next year, you may see Hawaii Independent Energy on that list — that’s the name that Texas-based Par Petroleum gave to the company that it bought from Tesoro,

Other companies that have seen huge paydays from federal contracting in Hawaii in the past decade include British defense giant BAE Systems ($1.2 billion) and locally owned construction. Nan’s extraordinary success in garnering federal contracts since it was founded in 1995 prompted that culminated in owner Patrick Shin pleading guilty to submitting false documents to inflate the cost of a federally contracted repair job by $380,000. Shin was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine and sentenced to three years of probation and 12 days in federal prison,

But the scandal doesn’t appear to have slowed down Nan’s ascent. The company got $70 million in federal funds last year and $102 million the year before.

Other firms that routinely secure hefty sums include Manu Kai and ITT Systems for their work on Kauai’s Pacific Missile Range Facility; rail contractor Peter Kiewit Sons Inc.; and URS Corporation, which built a $42 million aircraft hangar at Hickam Air Force Base. In the past 10 years, the California-based Bergen Brunswig Drug Company got more than $700 million in federal money to supply pharmaceuticals to Hawaii hospitals and military bases.

Here are the firms that have won the heftiest federal contracts in Hawaii since 2003:

In some cases, these sorts of federal contracts span two or more years.

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