Hawaii’s High Costs Leave Many Struggling To Get By … Throughout the coming year, Civil Beat will be examining the challenges facing Hawaii’s disappearing middle class, including the political barriers that have long stymied improvement.
In the next decade or so, economists predict Hawaii will face a significant social and economic crisis, as the number of older retirees balloons and there aren’t enough working people paying taxes needed to support kupuna.
Federal programs like Social Security and Medicare will be stretched to their limits. Personal savings for retirement – for those fortunate enough to have pensions or to have built equity in their homes – will be starting to run thin. And, compared with other states, Hawaii will have an unusually high number of people living past 85.
“Aging in the U.S. is going to bring a great deal of pressure to the systems of support, and that’s going to rebound to Hawaii,” says Andrew Mason, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Hawaii who has extensively studied the state’s demographics.
