Living in Hawaiʻi brings the unique challenge of a notoriously high cost of living driven by steep housing, inflated grocery prices due to shipping, and massive utility bills.
To retain local working families and young professionals, Hawaiʻi must close the gap between its high cost of living and stagnant local wages. Viable futures require expanding the economic base beyond tourism to include technology, green energy, and agriculture, alongside the rapid delivery of affordable housing.
I will champion legislation that raises the baseline of worker compensation, restores collective bargaining power, and breaks the cycle of economic inequality.
I will push to make the tax code more progressive by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit, while mandating universal paid family and medical leave.
Lowering housing costs requires tackling high construction prices, restrictive zoning, and excessive development fees. We muat eliminate exclusionary single-family zoning, reduce minimum lot sizes, and eliminate parking requirements to allow more units per acre. We must cut lengthy permitting processes by offering pre-approved building plans and parallel-review systems.
To dedicate housing for local working families, the market must be re-engineered to prioritize resident occupancy over outside wealth. This requires shifting away from basic price caps to enforceable, perpetual deed restrictions, combined with expanded leasehold programs and aggressive down payment assistance for residents.
The most reliable way to prevent out-of-state speculation is to attach permanent covenants to homes stipulating that they must be continuously occupied by local residents. Rather than using restrictive equity caps that trap residents, these restrictions should prioritize a broad buyer pool of Hawaiʻi residents who live and work in the state.
The State must fast-track large-scale infrastructure, expanding public-private partnerships, and aggressively reforming zoning regulations. Expanding the 99-Year Leasehold Program signed into law as Act 121, this program leverages state and county-owned land to build affordable, owner-occupied condominium homes for local residents. At least 60% of these units are permanently priced to be affordable for households earning up to 140% of the Area Median Income (AMI).
To immediately reduce your grocery bill, optimize your shopping location and shift your purchasing habits. Shop at discount chains or warehouse clubs (like Costco) to save 10% to 20% compared to standard supermarkets. Always choose store-brand items over name brands.
The State can make childcare and education more affordable by expanding tax credits (such as the Child + Dependent Care Tax Credit), subsidizing tuition for low-income families via programs like Child Care Connection Hawaii, and funding universal Pre-K. They can also increase capacity by easing regulations and utilizing micro-facilities to lower operating overhead.
Exempting food and prescription medicine from the General Excise Tax (GET) would provide the most immediate, structural relief for local working families. Because the GET is a pyramiding tax levied on almost all transactions, it disproportionately harms lower-income households who spend a larger portion of their earnings on basic necessities.
Hawai‘i is widely considered a difficult place to do business due to the highest cost of living in the nation, crippling supply chain expenses, immense geographic isolation, and an exceptionally complex, bureaucratic regulatory environment that hinders growth. Provide tax relief and simplify the state's highly complex tax system to reduce compliance costs for small operators.
To effectively improve state and local governance, I support implementing open-budget databases, establishing independent ethics commissions, and deploying automated compliance workflows. Together, these reforms directly address transparency by tracking taxpayer money, enforcing accountability, and streamlining administrative efficiency for the public.
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