Why the Middle Class Is Most Likely to Leave Hawaii

so what point do you decide as a local enough is enough and it's time to leave Hawaii and I think this discussion is more than just being priced out of paradise or the fact that the cost of living continues to rise here in Hawaii because last year over 15 000 people left the state and I think it's something that affects all income brackets and so I wanted to discuss why people decided to stay or leave in the context of low-income middle class and wealthy households and of course I'll be speaking in generalities but I think it's important to have this discussion and put it out there because I don't know maybe some people can relate and I think the decision on whether or not one should leave Hawaii is more than just it's too expensive I think there's a lot of other factors and I want to dive a little bit deeper life so let's start with the people who are most likely to stay in Hawaii and I think that's people in the low income bracket whatever that may mean whether it's based on HUD or Ami or you just feel low income here in Hawaii because being in that income group you probably wouldn't be able to afford moving out of Hawaii and if you're a household who receives government assistance whether that's through food stamps or Section 8 housing I also think it's hard to leave and a lot more comfortable to stay because of the High Cost of Living I think a lot of these government assistance programs provide very let's just say generous benefits and to step away from that you'd be losing quite a bit I also think that if you're a low-income family that is staying with family it's not necessarily government assistance but you do have probably Free Housing which is absolutely huge we have a large population here in Hawaii that lives in multi-generational housing and that's at multiple income levels that's not just necessarily low income but if you're at that low income bracket you're probably going to want to stay home because the cost of living is so high and to go out and get a place on your own probably impossible to buy but even to find affordable rent is also fairly difficult and with that housing comes the associated free or reduced but most likely free child care costs because you're living with family you know that if you have kids you're going to have somebody to help watch your kids I do also want to mention that if you have strong family tires here I think it is hard to move away and so you're most likely going to stay this affects of course all income brackets but I think particularly for low income I think it makes it worth it and I think a lot of people choose to be like well my family is here I'm just gonna tolerate and struggle but at least my family is here and family is very important now we're oh sorry but oh too much sun huh sorry now where I will say that I think people in the low income bracket would choose to leave one is no more Family Ties in Hawaii whether that's through someone dying or probably more likely family has left because you can send stuff up and when you get there you could either live with them or that transition from Hawaii to Mainland will be a whole lot easier and I think the second reason to move is just deciding that you don't want to be low income anymore and you want to try and move up into that middle class which highly possible on the mainland particularly in some areas that have the lowest cost of living there's a lot more jobs on the mainland and you could have a good life you could be a middle class citizen if you're just tired of this grind and so I think if you want to make that transition you just decide as a family you want to move I think that's entirely viable now I think if you're actually wealthy you're sort of in that middle group where you can either stay or decide to leave I think it's fairly flexible and part of it is of course because you'd have so many more financial resources that the cost of living here wouldn't necessarily affect you in the same way that it would low income or middle-class families and so in a lot of ways you'd probably be immune assuming you can budget and control some of your expenses you'd be immune to a lot of the high cost of living things like food or gas but there's also that likelihood that you also come from an affluent family which means that you get a lot of financial assistance whether again that's through housing or just being able to borrow money you'd have access to all that Capital that a lot of lower income or middle class families just wouldn't be able to have and so despite being sort of immune from the high cost of living in Hawaii I do think there are some reasons that if you're wealthy you probably want to leave I think the first is just being bored of Hawaii you know after living here for only so long I think you probably have done everything that you wanted to do and after a while gets kind of boring you can only go to the same places so often eat at the same places for so often before it gets a little stale now you can travel which I think a lot of people do and if you're affluent yeah absolutely you can go traveling and maybe Stave off some of that boredom but Hawaii is only so big and I think after a while if you get bored you might decide that this is enough and you just want to leave now I think another reason would be you miss your family on the mainland that would be a good reason to move and if you're financially secure and you have a lot of resources you could make that move fairly easy and if you're from the mainland of course that makes it a whole lot easier to I guess move back to where you're from but if you're not from the mainland you're locally here you might have family who has decided to move away and you might want to go ahead and join them I'm just talking about family on the mainland don't worry okay let's go and I think the last reason that you might consider leaving if you're wealthy is just tired of the local culture maybe you're just tired of taxes or or other things maybe government but you're just tired of the local way of life where things take three times as long and you think to yourself why do we do it that way here when we could just do it this way or like they do it in other places and if that gets so frustrating you could decide that you want to leave totally understand that and I've thought about that and I've totally been there so it seems nice to have a lot of money I I wouldn't know but it's nice to have a lot of money and have all those options okay and now the group most likely to leave Hawaii and that'd be the middle class and this incorporates a wide range of people that big Tax Group that seems to be supplying a lot of the money here locally at least with income taxes but let's talk about the middle class because that's where we fall in and I think a lot of other households fall in what do they decide to do whether they want to stay or leave it's so hard to save money here to get your own place to make it out on your own that sometimes it can be pretty tough and you may just think to yourself you know what if I was on the mainland I'd be able to buy my own home and you keep telling yourself that over and over and over again and one day you're gonna decide to leave and another reason that you'd probably consider leaving is you're just tired of the grind right you're just tired of being stuck in that middle class and as the years go by it seems like you're falling further and further behind I know this is the case for me I remember when I first started working here I was doing pretty well I was above the Ami percentage like the 100 Ami I was above that rate I remember thinking wow I'm I'm pretty well off and then I continued working and the Ami continued to shift and I noticed like the light is Shifting here and then I noticed that my percentage for the Ami started to drop lower and lower and of course now with the addition of a wife and two kids that has further slid down and it's just surprising to me that I'm making more than I ever have and yet if you look at the U.S HUD metrics I'm lower than I've ever been oh he's out and for those in the middle class especially if you're well educated there are a lot more opportunities on the mainland and other places for work which could mean a better quality of life because you'd have access to a higher income or more competitive incomes than the incomes that we have here in Hawaii but I do want to mention a reason to stay because there seems to be a lot of reasons why if you're in the middle class you'd want to leave and again I think that's the reason why a lot of people do decide to leave but if you're like me and you grew up in a fairly close family your parents and that family would be reason enough to stay as my parents have gotten older I'm glad that I'm here for them and just in case they need me because if I was thousands of miles away and something happened I would worry so much and I'd be flying back to make sure that they're okay and I could help take care of them of course I have my brother here as well but it just wouldn't be the same especially being the oldest and so it's important I feel for me to be here and to make sure that they're okay and so the decision on whether to Stay or Leave Hawaii I think is more than just it's just too expensive I think there's a lot of circumstances and nuances that come into play that maybe we don't talk about but are just as important as the financial reason to stay or to leave and maybe we don't talk about it because it's too sensitive or too shame but I think it's good to have discussions like this because this is stuff that real people are talking about real people are deciding whether or not it's worth it to leave or stay and like I mentioned we fall into that big middle class group where it's sort of shrinking on both ends but we fall still in that group and we're the most likely to leave well educated when we have a home we could absolutely just sell it and go buy a home cash and we'd be all set don't have a mortgage and we live pretty comfortably but again there's a couple of reasons to stay that I feel like are important are enough to keep me here they're enough that I feel like it's okay to make some of these sacrifices and to tolerate I guess some of these struggles especially knowing what we could do I'm willing to live a certain lifestyle so that we can live here so that my kids can experience sort of what I experienced growing up and that's what I think it means to live in Hawaii to grow up in Hawaii is to be close with family and to share that come and bond that a lot of people have not just your family but other people who live here we all know it's a struggle we all know that it's hard to make it and that's something that we all sort of share that struggle and that I think goes back to historically Plantation days when all different ethnic groups struggle but they somehow figured it out and they somehow made it work and I think that's what made them stronger I think that's why they're so proud to still be here because they somehow figured it out where they had absolutely nothing and yet they built businesses and they built their families and they built their reputations and they're the group that makes up Hawaii I'm going to assume that as time goes on we're going to continue to see a population decrease in Hawaii at least until there's some kind of balance some kind of homeostasis that the population is set to what the cost of living could actually be and like I mentioned I think if you're in that low-income group you're the most likely to stay or if you're in that wealthy or high High income group you're probably gonna stay but you have the flexibility to leave anytime you want and I think that move is fairly easy of course if you're stuck in that middle class you are probably the most likely to leave and I think that's where we're going to start to see that squeeze where people in that big middle class group they just decide to leave because there's too many reasons not to I know I hear a lot of people saying oh Hawaii's not like it used to be right ah things are changing people are driving a certain way or they're acting a certain way or they're not as friendly and I think a lot of that is that squeezing of that middle class which was a lot of people who were born and raised and grew up in Hawaii and I'm afraid that one day people will say you know Hawaii was a great place to grow up was a great place to grow up and that will be the same Hawaii was such a great place to grow up and those people who say that will then be the people who have to move away and that's all they're going to remember about Hawaii is it was a wonderful place to live and grow up but I can't afford to live there and so they're going to look from thousands of miles back at Hawaii and that's what they're gonna think and I hope that's not the case but if things don't change I'm afraid yeah in a generation or two that's where we're going to be at so let me know what you think in the comments below thanks for watching and aloha [Music]

Channel: Hello From Hawaii

Views: 23,542

Keywords: living in hawaii, Life in hawaii, what is it like in Hawaii, Moving to hawaii, hello from hawaii, hawaii, oahu, honolulu, hawaii life, life on hawaii, hawaiian life

Id: J9nmX5vI2Aw

Length: 13min 23sec (803 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 28 2023