Dear members of the House Committee on Labor & Tourism,
The Hawaii Workers Center supports some of the provisions in this bill, but
we must point out that the provisions and timetable in HB2510 are inadequate
and will not sufficiently help low-wage workers. It already costs more than $19
an hour for a single adult with no children to just barely make ends meet in
Hawaiʻi today. It is absolutely imperative that the minimum wage is raised to $18
an hour by 2026 (as SB2018 provided) if working families are to gain some
actual relief. Such a minimum wage should not provide an exemption for tip
credit.
Although we support the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $18 by
2026, we believe the minimum wage should be raised to $25 by 2025, and even
that, given the rate of inflation, will barely do the job of getting families out of
poverty and making it so that one job is enough for a wage-earner to support
her/his family. Anything less than $18 to $25 and hour is simply too low and too
slow to bring thousands of struggling low-wage workers in Hawai’i to a
sustainable standard of living.
Please accelerate the timetable for the wage increments and begin the raises
ASAP as the heads of major religious denominations have urged recently in their
public op-ed.
Send SB2018 to the governor’s desk for signature instead of this bill and do what
is best for Hawaiʻi’s hardworking families and agree to the Senate proposal.
Mahalo, John Witeck, for the Hawai’i Workers Center