Fellows mentioned in this story: Suzanne Skjold

From Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

Aloha United Way, in partnership with the Bank of Hawai‘i Foundation, released the 2024 ALICE in Hawai‘i report Thursday, urging policy action to address rising living costs, housing instability and economic challenges especially faced by the state’s ALICE — asset-limited, income-constrained, employed — households.

The 2024 ALICE in Hawai‘i report shows that while the percentage of households below the poverty line decreased to 12% in 2024 from 14% in 2022, the proportion of ALICE households remained unchanged at 29%. Nearly one-third of Hawai‘i households are classified as ALICE.

“We believe a few of the reasons for this are government interventions from COVID, which obviously helped families who were struggling to get back out of poverty; families have been able to go back to work after the pandemic and earn a little more money to bring themselves back out of poverty,” AUW Chief Operating Officer Suzanne Skjold said. “In some cases there were increases in wages for lower-wage jobs because of minimum wage rules.”

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