Blogs
UHERO 101.7: School’s Out, Unemployment Up?
By Kimberly Burnett and James Jones Last week’s Star Advertiser reported that Honolulu’s unemployment rate increased from May’s 4.0% to 4.7% in June. Is the local labor market in free-fall? Not exactly. When students graduate or are released for summer break, many of them start searching for employment. Suddenly the labor market is flooded with thousands […]
Read MoreCoastal Zone Management in Hawaii
By Christopher Wada Hawaii has 750 linear miles of coastline that include all of our beaches, an array of cliffs, bays and other features that count among our most treasured natural resources. Development of these resources is a key source of economic growth, but ensuring that this development is carried out in a manner that […]
Read MoreUHERO 101.6: Recession Dating
By Kimberly Burnett While the U.S. economy has been out of the last recession since the summer of 2009, a new poll found that a majority of people (54%) thinks the country is still there. How are these things measured, and who decides when a recession starts and ends? The National Bureau of Economic Research […]
Read MoreThe Impact of Marriage Equality on Hawai′i’s Economy and Government: An Update After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Decisions
By Sumner La Croix and Lauren Gabriel The U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in the two same-sex marriage cases have substantially increased the short-term and medium-term benefits that could accrue to Hawai‘i if the Hawai‘i State Legislature enacts legislation allowing same-sex marriages to begin in Fall 2013 or early in 2014. Our updated report comes to […]
Read MoreUHERO 101.5: Much Ado about Student Loans
By Kimberly Burnett and James Jones How will college students around the country be affected by the latest policy change regarding interest rates on student loans? Rates on subsidized Stafford loans, which account for about 25% of all federal student loans, increased from 3.4% to 6.8% for new loans beginning this week. How big of […]
Read MoreUS Marines Moving From Okinawa – Pacific Beat Interview
By Sumner La Croix The United States announced plans on June 20 to move about a quarter of the ~20,000 US marines based in Okinawa to Guam, Hawaii, the US mainland, the Philippines, and Australia over the next 13 years. Are those plans still moving forward? Yes, they are, but an editorial in last week’s […]
Read MoreAn Insight on the Cost of Paradise
Whether visitors or residents in Hawai‘i, we are all aware of the high cost of living in paradise. One major contributing factor is the cost of energy. Households in Hawai‘i pay 4 times more than the average US household and nearly 7 times the households in Utah, where the residential energy cost is the cheapest […]
Read MoreThe Challenges of EV Efficiency In Hawaii
Earlier this month, U.S. Department of Energy launched a website that calculates “the cost of fueling a vehicle with electricity compared to a similar vehicle that runs on gasoline”. The mission of this gadget is to encourage consumers to switch to electric cars by: • bringing greater transparency to vehicle operating costs • helping drivers determine how […]
Read MoreUHERO 101.4: Record Visitors, Flat Spending
Last year is often described as a banner year for the Hawaii tourism industry. With record visitor arrivals close to 8 million, it is easy to come to the conclusion that tourism is stronger than ever in the state. Is the number of tourists in a destination the primary indicator to measure success of the […]
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