Across Hawaiʻi, local families are struggling to make ends meet – even when working two full-time jobs. The cost of living has become a major barrier, making it harder for our people to stay in Hawaiʻi Nei. At the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), we see this challenge clearly – not just in the communities we serve, but within our own organization.
We, as the Board of Trustees, recently voted to support two important action items that support our commitment to our OHA ʻohana or our staff, our most valuable asset: salary increases and teleworking policies.
I was honored to chair an Ad Hoc Committee tasked with examining existing staff salaries at OHA and making salary recommendations that better reflect the real cost of living in Hawaiʻi.
The recommendation to increase OHA staff salaries wasn’t made lightly. It was driven by our shared commitment to supporting our employees, many of whom are Native Hawaiian and deeply connected to the mission of OHA and the lāhui.
According to the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Living Wage Calculator, a single adult in Honolulu needs to earn a (gross) salary of $62,451/year just to afford basic necessities – far above the state’s current minimum wage of $14/hour. For families with keiki, the minimum living wage required exceeds $100,000/year.
The Board of Trustees also voted to adopt a telework policy to assist with commute time, the high cost of gasoline, parking issues at the main office, and better work-life balance for staff. The telework policy is a hybrid work-from-home for eligible employees. This will save OHA more than $96,000 annually.
Our staff work every day to uplift our people, but like many in Hawaiʻi, they’ve faced increasing financial pressures. Housing costs, groceries, childcare, and transportation expenses continue to rise, while wages across the state haven’t kept pace.
These challenges hit Native Hawaiians especially hard. Native Hawaiians continue to experience high rates of housing insecurity, outmigration, and wage disparities. If we want to reverse those trends, we need to start by ensuring our own people can live and thrive in Hawaiʻi.
OHA’s decision to raise staff salaries and implement a telework policy are significant attempts to address these socioeconomic impacts on our staff. By investing in the financial wellbeing of our employees, we’re helping them stay rooted here, be able to afford housing, and continue contributing their talents to our communities. This is about more than just pay – it’s about honoring their service, recognizing the value they bring, and building a Hawaiʻi where working for and with our people is a viable path forward.
While these are just two pieces of a much larger puzzle, it reflects a core belief: that the people who serve the lāhui deserve to be able to live in the same communities they uplift. Affordable housing remains one of the greatest challenges in our state, with median home prices near $1 million and rental costs continuing to rise. If we want our local families – especially Native Hawaiians – to remain here for generations, we must take meaningful steps to close the gap between wages and reality.
The trustees’ action reflects that responsibility. If we want to keep our people home, we must create systems that support them. The future of our work is rooted in the people we support and empower.
Our lāhui deserves to thrive, not just survive. And that begins with decisions like these, where values meet action. We mahalo our staff for their dedication, we appreciate you.
